Dame Joan Plowright

Joan Ann Plowright Olivier, Baroness Olivier, DBE (28 October 1929 – 16 January 2025), commonly known as Dame Joan Plowright, was an English actress whose career spanned over six decades.

She received several accolades including two Golden Globe Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. At the time of her death, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Plowright studied at the Old Vic Theatre School before acting onstage at the Royal National Theatre where she met her husband Sir Laurence Olivier. She acted opposite him in the John Osborne play The Entertainer on the West End in 1957 and on Broadway in 1958. She earned the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her A Taste of Honey (1961). She won the Laurence Olivier Award for Filumena (1978).

She made her film debut in an uncredited role in Moby Dick (1956). She later won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Enchanted April (1991). She was BAFTA-nominated for her roles in The Entertainer (1960) and Equus (1977). She also acted in the films Uncle Vanya (1963), Three Sisters (1970), Avalon (1990), Dennis the Menace (1993), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Jane Eyre (1996), Tea with Mussolini (1999), Bringing Down the House (2003), and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005). She also voiced roles for the children's films Dinosaur (2000) and Curious George (2006).

On television she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her role in the HBO television film Stalin (1992). She retired from acting due to macular degeneration in 2014. She made her final filmed appearance in the documentary Nothing Like a Dame (2018).

Early life and education

Plowright was born on 28 October 1929 in Brigg, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Daisy Margaret (née Burton) and William Ernest Plowright, who was a journalist and newspaper editor. She attended Scunthorpe Grammar School and then trained at The Old Vic Theatre School.

Career

 

Plowright made her stage debut at Croydon in 1948 and her London debut in 1954. In 1956 she joined the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre and was cast as Margery Pinchwife in The Country Wife. She appeared with George Devine in the Eugène Ionesco play The Chairs, and Shaw's Major Barbara and Saint Joan.

In 1957, Plowright co-starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in the original London production of John Osborne's The Entertainer, taking over the role of Jean Rice from Dorothy Tutin when the play transferred from the Royal Court to the Palace Theatre. She continued to appear on stage and in films such as The Entertainer (1960). In 1961, she received a Tony Award for her role in A Taste of Honey on Broadway.

Through her marriage to Olivier, Plowright became closely associated with his work at the National Theatre from 1963 onwards. In the 1990s, she began to appear more regularly in films, including Enchanted April (1992) for which she won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination, Dennis the Menace (1993), The Scarlet Letter (1995), 101 Dalmatians (1996), playing Nanny, and Tea With Mussolini (1999). Among her television roles, she won another Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination for the HBO film Stalin in 1992 as the Soviet dictator's mother-in-law. Her pair of 1992 performances (Enchanted April and Stalin) marked only the second time an actress (after Sigourney Weaver, for performances in 1988) won two Golden Globes in the same year; as of the January 2023 presentation, only Helen Mirren (for performances in 2006) and Kate Winslet (for performances in 2008) have duplicated this feat. In 1994, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.

In 2003, Plowright performed in the stage production Absolutely! (Perhaps) in London. She was appointed honorary president of the English Stage Company in March 2009, succeeding John Mortimer who died in January 2009. She was previously vice-president of the company. She made her final filmed appearance in the British documentary Nothing Like a Dame (2018) with her acting Dame friends Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins.

Personal life

Marriages and family

Plowright was first married to the actor Roger Gage in September 1953.
She later divorced him and in 1961 married Laurence Olivier shortly after the end of Olivier's twenty-year marriage to the actress Vivien Leigh. Plowright and Olivier had three children together. Both daughters became actresses. The couple remained married until Olivier's death in 1989. Plowright's younger brother, David Plowright (1930–2006), was an executive at Granada Television.

She published her memoirs, And That's Not All, in 2001.

Illness and death

Plowright's vision declined steadily during the late 2000s and early 2010s due to macular degeneration. In 2014 she officially announced her retirement from acting because she had become legally blind. Plowright died at Denville Hall in Northwood, London, on 16 January 2025, at the age of 95.

Legacy

The Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe is named in Plowright's honour. Plowright was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1970 New Year Honours and was promoted to Dame Commander of the same Order (DBE) in the 2004 New Year Honours. In her obituary, Variety described her as "perhaps the greatest Anglophone actor of the 20th century"