Tony Award-winning British actor Joan Plowright, widow of Laurence Olivier, dies at 95
Award-winning British stage actor Joan Plowright, the widow of Laurence Olivier, has died. She was 95
By MARK KENNEDY and PAN PYLAS, Associated Press
LONDON (AP) â Award-winning British actor Joan Plowright, who with her late husband Laurence Olivier did much to revitalize the U.K.âs theatrical scene in the decades after World War II, has died. She was 95.
In a statement Friday, her family said Plowright died the previous day at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.
âShe enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,â the family said. âWe are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.â
FILE â Joan Plowright, nominated for best supporting actress for her role in âEnchanted Aprilâ arrives at the Music Center in Los Angeles on Monday, March 29, 1993 for the 65th Annual Academy Awards. (AP Photo/Julie Markes, File)Part of an astonishing 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 dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Plowright racked up dozens of stage roles in everything from Anton Chekhovâs âThe Seagullâ to William Shakespeareâs âThe Merchant of Venice.â She stunned in Eugene Ionescoâs âThe Chairs,â and George Bernard Shawâs totemic two female roles âMajor Barbaraâ and âSaint Joan.â
âIâve been very privileged to have such a life,â Plowright said in a 2010 interview with The Actorâs Work. âI mean itâs magic and I still feel, when a curtain goes up or the lights come on if thereâs no curtain, the magic of a beginning of what is going to unfold in front of me.â
The esteem in which Plowright was held in London was evident with the news that theaters across the West End will dim their lights for two minutes at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in her honor.
Born Joan Ann Plowright in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England, her mother ran an amateur drama group and Plowright was involved in the theater from age 3. She was soon spending school vacations at summer sessions of university drama schools. After high school, she studied at the Laban Art of Movement Studio in Manchester, then won a two-year scholarship to the drama school at the Old Vic Theatre in London.
Following her London stage debut in 1954, Plowright became a member of the Royal Court Theatre in 1956 and gained recognition in dramas written by the so-called Angry Young Men, such as John Osborne, who were giving British theater a thorough airing-out. The new, rough-hewn, working-class actors like Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins were her peers.
Plowright made her feature film debut with an uncredited turn in American director John Hustonâs epic adaptation of Herman Melvilleâs âMoby Dickâ in 1956, starring Gregory Peck as the obsessed Captain Ahab.
A year later, she co-starred with her future husband Olivier in the original London production of Osborneâs âThe Entertainer.â She played Olivierâs daughter in the work and the two reunited for the 1960 film adaptation.
FILE â Laurence Olivier and English actress Joan Plowright in a scene from John Osborneâs play, âThe Entertainerâ which opened on Broadway on Feb. 4, 1958. (AP Photo, File)By then, Plowrightâs marriage to British actor Roger Cage had ended, as had Olivierâs 20-year union with Vivien Leigh. Plowright and Olivier were married in Connecticut in 1961, while both were starring on Broadway, he in âBecketâ and she in âA Taste of Honey,â for which she won a Tony.
One love letter Olivier sent summed up his love: âI sometimes feel such a peacefulness come over me when I think of you, or write to you â a gentle tenderness and serenity. A feeling devoid of all violence, passion or shattering longing⊠it makes me go out into the street with a smile on my face and in my heart for everybody.â
Olivier died in 1989 at the age of 82. After that, Plowright enjoyed a career resurgence at the age of 60, satisfying both upmarket tastes and more commercial fare.
She was in Franco Zeffirelliâs version of Charlotte BrontĂ«âs âJane Eyreâ in 1996 and the Merchant-Ivory production of âSurviving Picasso,â as well as starring as the stalwart nanny in Disneyâs live-action remake of â101 Dalmatiansâ in 1996 with Glenn Close.
She starred opposite Walter Matthau in the big screen adaptation of the classic comic strip âDennis the Menace,â and made a brief appearance in the Arnold Schwarzenegger self-referencing satire âLast Action Heroâ in 1993.
Plowright became one of only a handful of actors to win two Golden Globes in the same year, in 1993, when she won the supporting actress TV award for âStalinâ and the supporting actress movie award for âEnchanted April.â For the latter, which told the story of a group of Britons finding their lives transformed on a vacation to Italy, she received her sole nomination for an Academy Award.
Not all her works were career roses, as with the disastrous âThe Scarlet Letterâ starring Demi Moore and a pilot that went nowhere for a TV series based on âDriving Miss Daisy.â An appearance alongside Chevy Chase in the 2011 holiday family comedy âGoose on the Looseâ didnât rouse critics.
A prominent role in later life was keeper of the Olivier flame â bestowing awards, defending her husband in the press and curating his letters.
âThat is my choice because I was privileged to live with him,â she told The Daily Telegraph in 2003. âWhen someone who has had such fame and idolatry and worship goes, then thereâs bound to be a backlash which comes the other way and you get a bit sick of that. Mine was really trying to put things straight.â
Plowright is survived by her three children â Tamsin, Richard and Julie-Kate, all actors, and several grandchildren.
Kennedy reported from New York.
Originally Published: January 17, 2025 at 9:29 AM EST
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