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Joan Plowright, an award-winning British actress and widow of Laurence Olivier, has died. She was 95.
“She had a long and illustrious career in theater, film and television for seven decades until her retirement due to her blindness,” Plowright’s family said in a statement.
The Tony Award-winning actress died Thursday at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in the south of England. Plowright was surrounded by loved ones at the time of her death.
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Joan Plowright was created a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)
“We are so proud of everything Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.”
Part of an amazing generation of British actors including Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith, Plowright won a Tony Award, two Golden Globes and nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy. She was made a lady Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
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Laurence Olivier and English actress Joan Plowright in a scene from John Osborne’s play The Entertainer, which premiered on Broadway on February 4, 1958. (AP photo)
Plowright and her late husband Olivier shaped the British theater scene in the decades after the Second World War.
The British actress was born Joan Ann Plowright in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England. She began performing on stage at the age of three when her mother ran a theater group.
Plowright spent the school holidays at summer events at the university’s drama schools. After high school she studied at the Laban Art of Movement Studio in Manchester and then won a two-year scholarship to drama school at the Old Vic Theatre in London.
From left to right, actress Joan Plowright, director Peter Greenaway and actresses Joely Richardson and Juliet Stevenson from the film “Drowning by Numbers” pose for a photo after the screening of their film on Thursday, May 19, 1988, in competition with the 41st Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. (AP Photo/Pierre Gleizes)
She made her stage debut in London in 1954 and two years later became a member of the Royal Court Theater. Plowright gained fame in plays by John Osborne. She worked with actors such as Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins.
Plowright made her feature film debut in 1956 with an uncredited role in American director John Huston’s epic adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in which Gregory Peck played the possessed Captain Ahab.
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A year later, she starred alongside her future husband Olivier in the original London production of Osborne’s The Entertainer. She played Olivier’s daughter in the work, and the two reunited for the 1960 film adaptation.
Joan Plowright, nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Enchanted April,” arrives at the 65th Academy Awards at the Music Center in Los Angeles on March 29, 1993. (AP Photo/Julie Marques)
In 1961, Plowright and Olivier married in Connecticut while both were starring on Broadway – he in “Becket” and she in “A Taste of Honey,” for which she won a Tony.
“Sometimes I feel such a peacefulness come over me when I think of you or write to you – a gentle tenderness and serenity. A feeling free from any violence, passion or harrowing longing… it makes me go out on the streets with that feeling.” “A smile on my face and in my heart for everyone,” Olivier wrote in a love letter to Plowright.
Olivier died in 1989 at the age of 82. After his death, at the age of 60, Plowright experienced a resurgence in his acting career.
In 1993, Plowright was one of only a few actors to win two awards Golden Globes in the same year. She won the TV Supporting Actress Award for “Stalin” and the Supporting Actress Film Award for “The Enchanted April.”
Joan Plowright, left, Laurence Olivier and actress Lauren Bacall at the U.S. premiere of Lord Olivier’s only production of Shakespeare produced exclusively for television, “King Lear,” in New York, May 3, 1983. (AP Photo/Carlos Rene Perez, File)
With dozens of films to her name, she has starred in films such as “Dennis the Menace,” “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” and “The Scarlet Letter.”
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Plowright is survived by her three children – Tamsin, Richard and Julie-Kate, who are all actors – and several grandchildren.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
