Joan Plowright, UK film and theater legend, dies at 95

Oscar-nominated English actor Joan Plowright, acknowledged as one of the leading actors of her generation, has died at the age of 95, her family said on Friday, Jan. 17.

A star first in theater and later on screen, Plowright was also the wife of the great actor Laurence Olivier.

“It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on 16 January 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall at the glorious age of 95,” her family said.

“Her brilliant career will be remembered by many, her wonderful being always cherished by her children Richard, Tamsin and Julie-Kate, their families and Joan’s many friends,” they added.

Plowright’s career was largely played out in the theater, often opposite her husband, but following his death in 1989 she began to find more roles on screen.

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Her later film and television work introduced her to new generations, with two films in particular that took her to Italy.

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In the 1991 film “Enchanted April,” set in the 1920s, she played the acid-tongued Mrs. Fisher, for which she missed out on an Oscar to Marisa Tomei.

The other film that took her to Italy was Franco Zeffirelli’s 1999 film “Tea with Mussolini,” set in Florence in 1935, in which she teamed up with two other dames of the English stage, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.

Multiple awards

In 1993, she became one of the few actors to have won two Golden Globes in the same year, one for “Enchanted April” and the other for the HBO TV series “Stalin.”

She also appeared in films that attracted a younger audience such as “Dennis the Menace,” “Last Action Hero” and “101 Dalmatians.”

Plowright won a Tony for her performance in “A Taste of Honey” in 1961 but then began to adjust her career to accommodate her husband as he directed the Chichester Festival Theatre and then launched the National Theatre.

This included performing alongside Olivier — on stage she received plaudits for her Sonya to Olivier’s Uncle Vanya — although she also took time off completely to have three children.

Plowright suffered macular degeneration which gradually caused her to lose her sight, leading her to retire from acting in 2014.

“It is a wrench,” she admitted at the time.

“But it is (a decision) that everybody has to make some time in their life and when you have had a very good life and been lucky, which I have, well you say ‘it’s my turn now’.”

The Olivier Awards, named after her husband, on Friday announced that theatre lights in London’s West End would be dimmed for two minutes in her memory next Tuesday evening.

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