
Vale: Joan Plowright
Veteran actress Dame Joan Plowright, best known for Enchanted April, 101 Dalmatians, and Avalon has died.
- Published by David Knox
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Veteran actress Dame Joan Plowright, best known for Enchanted April, 101 Dalmatians, and Avalon has died aged 95.
In a statement on Friday, her family said Plowright died the previous day at a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.
“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” the family said. “We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being.”
Plowright spent six decades working on stage and screen, marrying Laurence Olivier and winning a Tony Award, two Golden Globes and nominations for an Oscar and Emmy.
Her stage career commenced in 1948 leading to roles in The Seagull, The Merchant of Venice, Uncle Vanya, The Taming of the Shrew, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Look Back In Anger.
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.
The Entertainer, Jane Eyre, Surviving Picasso, 101 Dalmatians, Dennis the Menace, Last Action Hero, I Love You to Death, Avalon and Hotel Sorrento in Australia.
Her television credits include The Diary of Anne Frank, The Importance of Being Earnest, Encore! Encore! and a range of telemovies.
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 Stalin and the supporting actress movie award for Enchanted April.
“I’ve been very privileged to have such a life,” Plowright said in a 2010 interview.
“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.”
She retired from acting due to macular degeneration in 2014. She made her final filmed appearance in the documentary Nothing Like a Dame (2018).
Source: ABC