Joan Plowright, Tony Award Winner, Dead at 95

Joan Plowright, a British acting legend of stage and screen and the widow of Laurence Olivier, has died at the age of 95, Variety reports. A cause of death has not been disclosed.

She was the recipient of a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (for 1961’s A Taste of Honey) and two Golden Globes — one for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (for Enchanted April) and the other for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film (for HBO’s Stalin) — both of which she was awarded in 1993. She is one of only four actresses who have won two Golden Globes in the same year.

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Additionally, she received two BAFTA nominations (Most Promising Newcomer for 1961’s The Entertainer, and Best Supporting Actress for 1977’s Equus), an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress (for the aforementioned Enchanted April) and an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie (for Stalin).

In addition to Stalin, Stateside TV credits included the 1980 TV-movie The Diary of Anne Frank (as Edith Frank to Melissa Gilbert’s title character), the 1992 TV-movie Driving Miss Daisy (as Daisy Wertthan to Robert Guillaume’s Hoke Colburn) and the short-lived NBC sitcom Encore! Encore! (where she played mom to Nathan Lane’s retired opera singer).

Her film credits included Brimestone and Treacle (1982), Revolution (1985), Drowning by Numbers (1988), The Dressmaker (1989), Tea With Mussolini (1999), Callas Forever (2002), Bringing Down the House (2003) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2006). To audiences of a certain age, she’s perhaps best known for a trio of family friendly titles, having played Mrs. Wilson in Dennis the Menace (1993), Nanny in the live-action 101 Dalmatians (1996) and Aunt Lucina in The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008).

She retired from acting in 2014 after going blind due to macular degeneration.

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