Acting career
Rees made her television debut as a parlour maid in 1968 in an adaptation of Shaw's Man and Superman, appearing alongside Eric Porter and Maggie Smith. Other appearances in various television dramas and comedy series quickly followed, including The Way We Live Now, The Avengers, The Wednesday Play, Doctor in the House, Crown Court and Within These Walls.
Her most notable early roles included the daughter of Winston Churchill (played by Richard Burton) in The Gathering Storm, Lucy in Dennis Potter's television play Joe's Ark (both 1974), and as Celia in As You Like It opposite Helen Mirren (1978). Director Alan Bridges said of Rees' performance in Potter's television play that it was one of the finest performances he had ever witnessed.
She starred as the fictional murderous daughter of Jack the Ripper in the Hammer horror Hands of the Ripper (1971) and the star-studded film version of Under Milk Wood (1971) starring Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Taylor. Her other film roles included Jane Eyre (1970), To Catch a Spy (1971), The Love Ban (1973), Moments (1974), La petite fille en velours bleu (1978), The Curse of King Tut's Tomb (1980), the television miniseries Master of the Game (1984) and The Wolves of Kromer (1998), a British-made fantasy film narrated by Boy George.
Rees appeared in many stage productions in London's West End, including It's a Two-foot-six-inches Above-the-ground World (Wyndhams, 1970); The Picture of Dorian Gray (Lyric, Hammersmith, 1975); The Millionairess (Haymarket, 1978–79); Perdita in A Winter's Tale (Young Vic, 1981) and A Handful of Dust (Lyric, Hammersmith, 1982). Her other Shakespearean roles included Ophelia for the Welsh Theatre Company (1969) and Hermione at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff (1985).
From 1975 to 1977 she played the lead role of Demelza in the BBC TV costume drama Poldark, the role with which she is most closely associated, appearing in all but the first episode. In 1983 she starred in another Cornish-set period drama The Forgotten Story, also based on a Winston Graham novel.
She toured in the Bill Kenwright production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, directed by Peter Hall, with Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray and appeared regularly with John Mortimer in Mortimer’s Miscellany, his self-devised anthology of poetry and prose presented at theatres around Britain.
Later television work included the sitcom Close to Home (1989–90) and the sporting drama Trainer (1992).
