Benedict Cumberbatch has paid tribute to his half-sister Tracey Peacock, who has died of cancer aged 62.
The Sherlock star spoke about his “markedly different” sibling, whose illness hadn’t been made public up until now.
“She died of cancer,” Cumberbatch told The Daily Mail. “She’d been battling it for seven years.
“As the greatly awful Donald Rumsfeld said, ‘Stuff happens.’ It’s horrible. She was nothing to do with this world. She was markedly different.”
Cumberbatch called Peacock “a brilliant fine artist” who “ended up doing a lot of restorative work on canvas and on frames and carpentry”.
He added: “[She] still kept her hand in and did her own work and made the most Christmas and celebratory cards of any kind of festival. She was very gifted.”
Peacock was the daughter of Wanda Ventham and James Tabernacle.
When Ventham married Cumberbatch’s father Timothy Carlton, Peacock continued staying with her mother where the Sherlock star and she grew up together.
Cumberbatch recalled an incident from his childhood where Peacock left him on the rooftop on a cold day and “forgot about me”.
“I mean, it was funny,” the actor said. “She was in the kitchen with her friends and she suddenly saw the snow falling through the window.”
