LONDON  –  Dame Joan Plowright, one of Britain’s most celebrated stage and screen stars and the widow of Sir Laurence Olivier, has died at the age of 95. Her career spanned 60 years and included an Oscar nomination for the 1991 film Enchanted April. She married Olivier in 1961 after starring opposite him as his daughter in The Entertainer, and became a leading member of the National Theatre, which he set up. In a statement, her family said they were “so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being”.

Her family said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on January 16 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall aged 95. “She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire. “She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories.” They added: “She survived her many challenges with Plowright grit and courageous determination to make the best of them, and that she certainly did. “Rest in peace, Joan…” She had been retired for a decade, having lost her eyesight and been registered blind. Born in Scunthorpe, Plowright became a leading lady in London’s West End in the 1950s, and first appeared opposite Olivier in John Osborne’s The Entertainer at the Royal Court in 1957. He was still married to Gone With The Wind star Vivien Leigh at the time, and Plowright was married to her first husband Roger Gage.

Plowright and Olivier fell in love, and their acting partnership earned them both Bafta nominations for the film version of The Entertainer, which came out in 1960. That year, Plowright also made her breakthrough in the US in A Taste of Honey on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for her performance. Her other notable plays included George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, about Joan of Arc, in 1963, which for which she was named best actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. And she won a Society of West End Theatre Award – later renamed the Olivier Awards after her husband – in 1978 for Filumena. She received another Bafta nomination that same year for her performance in the film version of Equus alongside Richard Burton. In Enchanted April, her role as the elegant but peevish Mrs Fisher earned her a Golden Globe as well as a nomination for the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1993. (BBC/Imago)