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Lisa Maxwell’s family is grieving a tragic loss.
Beau Jessup—the daughter of the British TV actress and her husband Paul Jessup—died at the age of 27, according to Columbia Journalism School, where Jessup was studying as a graduate student.
“Columbia Journalism School mourns the loss of Beau Jessup, a student in our M.S. program,” the school shared in a Nov. 9 statement. “We extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, classmates and all who knew and loved her.”
No cause of death was shared.
Before her death, Jessup gave an interview with her college paper Columbia News in which she detailed how Maxwell—known for her role as Samantha Nixon on The Bill from 2001 to 2009 and as a presenter on the chat show Loose Women—inspired her to pursue journalism.
“As the daughter of a television actress, I grew up with an unusual awareness of the distance between people’s lives and the stories told about them,” she shared in the interview published Nov. 9. “I saw how journalism could illuminate someone’s experiences, but also how those experiences could be distorted, simplified, or transformed into a public narrative over which the subject had very little control.”
She added, “I was curious, from quite a young age, about who gets to tell people’s stories, and what happens when those stories enter the public domain.”
Plus, Jessup—who previously earned a master’s degree in Writing for Performance at the University of Cambridge—used her life’s experiences to understand “the power and the responsibility of storytelling.”
As for what she planned to do upon graduating in May?
Columbia University
“I want to work as a journalist and writer, reporting on people, culture, and social questions with the rigor I’m learning at Columbia,” Jessup said. “I’m particularly drawn to journalism for its power and immediacy, while continuing to write for theater when a subject benefits from being explored through a different form.”
Jessup was also interested in continuing her creative writing, hoping to have her work reach new heights.
“While completing my Master’s in Writing for Performance at the University of Cambridge, I wrote my first play, The Sandbag,” she added. “If I can arrange a table reading of The Sandbag in Pulitzer Hall [on campus], I’ll technically be able to claim my first play was performed on Broadway. Geographically speaking, at least.”
As for Maxwell—who also voiced Kira in Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 hit movie The Dark Crystal—her career turned to soap operas after she left The Bill in 2009, as she went on to star in Hollyoaks from 2016 to 2017.
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