The Oscar-winning Irish actor Brenda Fricker, who starred in the Daniel Day-Lewis drama My Left Foot and stole scenes in the Christmas classic Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has died at the age of 81.
In a statement, Fricker’s agent said: “We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her,” adding: “I was honoured to know, love and work with her and she will always have a place in my heart and in the heart of so many film and TV fans the world over.”
Fricker made history as the first Irish star to win an Academy Award for best supporting actress – taking home the Oscar in 1990 for playing Day-Lewis’s mother in My Left Foot.
My Left Foot writer-director Jim Sheridan, speaking to RTE, said: “She was an amazing actress, amazing character, a forceful personality. She was vibrant and full of life and had her own opinions. She took no prisoners, let’s put it that way.”
She was also known globally for her role as Pigeon Lady in the cult Christmas classic, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Fricker played a homeless lady living alongside the Central Park pigeons, who befriends young Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) as he causes chaos across the city.
The Dublin-born actor started out as a journalist, becoming an assistant to the art editor of the Irish Times before moving into acting at the age of 19. She took on a small role in 1964’s Of Human Bondage, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name, before being cast in Ireland’s very first soap, Tolka Row, and acting on stage at the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse.
She joined the cast of BBC One’s Casualty as nurse Megan Roach in 1986 and left four years later, but she returned as the character several times over the years.
It was in 1989 that she became an international star when she was cast as Christy Brown’s mother, Bridget, in Sheridan’s critically acclaimed biopic My Left Foot. The film told the story of Irish artist and writer Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy and only had mobility in his left foot.
My Left Foot was inundated with award nominations and ultimately took home the Oscars for best supporting actress and best actor, which went to its star Day-Lewis.
In her acceptance speech, Fricker thanked Christy Brown for “just being alive”, as well as his mother, saying: “Anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one of these.”
Fricker reunited with Sheridan a year later to star in his film The Field, co-starring with Richard Harris, John Hurt and Sean Bean.
She later starred in ITV drama Seekers, 1994 sports comedy Angels in the Outfield, 1997’s Masterminds and 2011’s Albert Nobbs, as well Home Alone 2, before retiring from big-screen roles in 2015.
Despite her illustrious career as a character actor on both stage and screen, Fricker said that she would have been offered more work had she not won an Oscar.
Speaking to The Times in 2024, Fricker said: “What did happen was the old curse of the Oscars, as they call it. The word ‘career’ is on everybody’s lips now, but it wasn’t then at all. If you had a career it meant that you were a bank manager.” She added that after winning the award, she was “passed over” and “typecast” in other roles.
“So there’s a lot that’s not great about an Oscar. And you don’t get any money,” she added. “They could give you a few bob with it, at least.”
Fricker’s final roles were in Canadian TV show Cam Boy (2021), ITV drama Holding (2022), Channel 5’s The Catch (2023) and British film The Miracle Club in 2024.
Last year, the actor opened up about her health struggles, admitting that she spent every day in pain and was confined to her bed in Dublin.
“I’ve never known tiredness ever in my life,” she told The Guardian. “I’m having a dreadful death. I’m just dying – every day in pain.” She added that when she was unable to sleep, she would watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, describing it as “better than sex and better than getting drunk”.
Read MoreThe bold new festival set to screen films everyone else is afraid to
Erling Haaland finally responds to Tom Holland’s dinner invitation after ghosting him
Tom Holland ‘humbled’ after being ghosted by World Cup star
Who were the Sea Peoples? The truth about the spectres haunting Nolan’s The Odyssey
Your essential guide to the many characters in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
The Odyssey viewers point out huge difference when watching film on this format
