Joan Plowright

Joan Plowright, born Joan Ann Plowright on 28 October 1929 in Brigg, Lincolnshire, England, was an English actress whose stage and screen career extended across more than six decades. The daughter of Daisy Margaret Burton and William Ernest Plowright, a journalist and newspaper editor, she attended Scunthorpe Grammar School before training at the Old Vic Theatre School. She died on 16 January 2025 at Denville Hall in Northwood, London, at the age of 95.

Plowright made her stage debut in Croydon in 1948 and her London debut in 1954. In 1956 she joined the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, where she was cast as Margery Pinchwife in The Country Wife and appeared in productions including the Eugène Ionesco play The Chairs alongside George Devine, as well as Shaw's Major Barbara and Saint Joan. That same year she made her film debut in an uncredited role in Moby Dick. In 1957 she co-starred with 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.

Her Broadway career ran from 1958 to 1980 and encompassed several notable productions. She brought The Entertainer to Broadway in 1958, again appearing opposite Olivier. Her performance in A Taste of Honey earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1961, and she later starred in Filumena and appeared in The Piano Lesson during her years on the New York stage. Her Olivier Award, presented by the Laurence Olivier Award organization, recognized her work in Filumena in 1978.

Through her 1961 marriage to Laurence Olivier, Plowright became closely connected to his work at the National Theatre from 1963 onward. The couple had three children together, all of whom pursued careers in the theatre, and remained married until Olivier's death in 1989. Plowright had previously been married to actor Roger Gage in September 1953 before that marriage ended in divorce. Her younger brother, David Plowright, who lived from 1930 to 2006, was an executive at Granada Television.

On screen, Plowright appeared in the films Uncle Vanya in 1963, Three Sisters in 1970, and Equus in 1977, as well as the 1960 film version of The Entertainer. Her film work became more frequent in the 1990s, when she appeared in Avalon in 1990, Enchanted April in 1991, Dennis the Menace in 1993 as Martha Wilson, A Place for Annie in 1994, 101 Dalmatians in 1996 as the dog nanny, Jane Eyre in 1996, Tea with Mussolini in 1999, and Bringing Down the House in 2003, among others. Her performance in Enchanted April brought her both the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also provided voice work for the children's films Dinosaur in 2000 and Curious George in 2006, and her later film credits included Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont in 2005 and The Spiderwick Chronicles in 2008.

In television, her role as the Soviet dictator's mother-in-law in the 1992 HBO film Stalin earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film, as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Her two Golden Globe wins in the same year, for Enchanted April and Stalin in 1992, made her only the second actress at that time to achieve that distinction in a single year. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 New Year Honours and was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2004 New Year Honours. She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Hull in 2001 and published her memoirs, And That's Not All, that same year.

Plowright retired from acting in 2014 after macular degeneration left her legally blind, and her final filmed appearance came in the 2018 British documentary Nothing Like a Dame, alongside Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins. The Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe is named in her honor.