Joan Plowright, Golden Globe and Tony winner and Laurence Olivier’s widow, dies at 95

Dame Joan Plowright, the venerable stage and screen actress and widow of Laurence Olivier, has died, AP reports. She was 95.

Plowright’s family confirmed in a statement to the outlet that she died surrounded by her family at Denville Hall, the London retirement home for actors, on Jan. 16. “She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” they said. “We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.”

Born in Brigg, England, on Oct. 28, 1929, the future Tony- and Golden Globe-winning actress spent her childhood and teenage years heavily involved in her mother’s amateur drama group. After making her professional stage debut in Croydon in 1948, she was awarded a two-year scholarship at London’s prestigious Old Vic Theater School.

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She made her London stage debut in 1954 and, two years later, joined the English Stage Company at the West End’s Royal Court Theatre, appearing in a feast of productions including The Crucible, Dom Juan, and The Country Wife, the latter of which earned her considerable praise amongst her fellow contemporaries including Olivier.

The pair would go on to share the stage together in playwright John Osborne’s London and Broadway productions of The Entertainer, in which Plowright portrayed Olivier’s daughter. They also starred in its lauded 1960 film adaptation, for which Olivier received an Oscar nomination, and tied the knot a year later in Connecticut. At the time, the couple, who share three children together, were starring in separate Broadway productions: Olivier in Becket, and Plowright in A Taste of Honey, for which she won the Tony award for Best Actress in a Play that same year.

Plowright would go on to perform in a bevy of celebrated productions both in New York City and across the pond over the next three decades, including Much Ado about Nothing, Eden's End, The Seagull, Filumena, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Time and the Conways. She also reprised her stage roles in multiple film adaptations like 1963’s Uncle Vanya and 1973’s The Merchant of Venice.

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In fact, Plowright was equally as prolific onscreen as she was onstage, earning a BAFTA nomination for her performance in 1977 film Equus and appearing in other film and television projects such as Three Sisters, Revolution, Daphne Laureola, and The Dressmaker. Following Olivier’s death in 1989, Plowright underwent a career resurgence that included her appearance in Mike Newell’s 1991 historical drama Enchanted April, for which her performance as the curmudgeonly Mrs. Jane Fisher saw her both nominated for an Oscar and win a Golden Globe. That same evening, Plowright also took home a second Golden Globe for her performance in HBO’s made-for-television film, Stalin. She received an Emmy nomination for Stalin that same year.

Plowright, who was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, continued to act until 2014 — landing roles in 1999’s Tea With Mussolini opposite Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith, voicing Victoria Plushbottom in 2006’s Curious George, and portraying the mysterious Aunt Lucinda 2008’s The Spiderwick Chronicles — when she retired after going blind due to macular degeneration. In honor of her legacy, theaters across London’s West End have announced that they will dim their lights for two minutes on Jan. 21.

“I’ve been very privileged to have such a life,” Plowright told The Actor’s Work in 2010. “I mean it’s magic and I still feel, when a curtain goes up or the lights come on if there’s no curtain, the magic of a beginning of what is going to unfold in front of me.”

Plowright is survived by her daughter, Julie-Kate Olivier; son Richard Olivier; daughter Tamsin Olivier; and four grandchildren.

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