Award-Winning Actress, Wife of Laurence Olivier Passes Away

Stage and screen legend Joan Plowright has passed away.

She was 95 years.

News of Plowright’s death comes courtesy of a statement from her family.

English actress Joan Plowright, UK, 17th October 1975.
English actress Joan Plowright, UK, 17th October 1975. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Joan Plowright’s Cause of Death

The statement revealed that Joan passed away at a retirement home for actors in southern England. She was surrounded by her loved ones as she breathed her last breaths.

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” the family said (via ABC News).

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

No cause of death was revealed, but it seems that the passing was not unexpected.

English actress Joan Plowright at the South Bank in London, UK, 4th May 1973.  English actress Joan Plowright at the South Bank in London, UK, 4th May 1973.
English actress Joan Plowright at the South Bank in London, UK, 4th May 1973. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

An Epic Life

Over the course of her long, illustrious career, Plowright won two Golden Globes, a Tony and was nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy and two BAFTA Awards.

She was only the second of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year.

Her roles in the film Enchanted April and the TV movie Stalin brought Plowright a new level of international fame in 1993.

Actors Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright embracing as they rehearse a scene from the play 'The Entertainer', 1957. Actors Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright embracing as they rehearse a scene from the play 'The Entertainer', 1957.
Actors Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright embracing as they rehearse a scene from the play ‘The Entertainer’, 1957. (Photo by Ron Burton/Keystone/Getty Images)

She married legendary actor Laurence Olivier following his divorce from Vivien Leigh in 1961. The couple had three children together and remained married until his death in 1989.

“I’ve been very privileged to have such a life,” she 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.”

Our thoughts go out to Joan’s loved ones during this difficult time.

Leave a Comment