Award-winning British actress Joan Plowright, widow of Laurence Olivier, dead at 95

Joan Plowright, an award-winning British actress and widow of Laurence Olivier, has died. She was 95. 

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” Plowright’s family shared in a statement. 

The Tony Award-winning actress died Thursday at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England. Plowright was surrounded by loved ones at the time of her death.

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“We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.”

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.

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Plowright and her late husband, Olivier, made an impact on the U.K.’s theatrical scene in the decades after World War II. 

The British actress was born with the name Joan Ann Plowright in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England. She started gracing the stage at the young age of 3 as her mother ran a drama group. 

Plowright spent 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.

In 1954, she made her London stage debut and became a member of the Royal Court Theatre two years later. Plowright gained recognition in dramas written by John Osborne. She worked with actors including Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins.

Plowright made her feature film debut with an uncredited turn in American director John Huston’s epic adaptation of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” 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 Osborne’s “The Entertainer.” She played Olivier’s daughter in the work, and the two reunited for the 1960 film adaptation.

In 1961, Plowright and Olivier got 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.

“I sometimes feel such a peacefulness come over me when I think of you, or write to you — 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,” Olivier wrote in a love letter to Plowright.

Olivier died in 1989 at the age of 82. Following his death, Plowright enjoyed an acting career resurgence at the age of 60.

In 1993, Plowright became one of only a handful of actors to win two Golden Globes in the same year. She won the supporting actress TV award for “Stalin” and the supporting actress movie award for “Enchanted April.”

With dozens of film credits to her name, she appeared in movies like “Dennis the Menace,” “The Spiderwick Chronicles” and “The Scarlet Letter.”

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.