Dame Joan Plowright, British Acting Great, Dies at 95

British acting legend Dame Joan Plowright has died at 95.

The actor, who was married to fellow acting great, Lord Laurence Oliver from 1961 to his death in 1989, “died peacefully on Jan. 16, 2025 surrounded by her family,” the BBC and Sky News reported, citing a family statement.

“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theater, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire,” the family statement reportedly continued. It added that the news had been released “with great sadness.”

One of Britain’s most acclaimed and distinguished screen stars, Plowright was made a Dame by the late Queen Elizabeth in 2003.

During her career, she won Golden Globes for TV biopic Stalin and Enchanted April, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award, U.K. newspaper The Times reported. Plowright also won a Tony Award for her performance in A Taste of Honey, on Broadway, and appeared in films including The Dressmaker and Tea with Mussolini in the 1980s and 1990s, Metro reported.

“She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories,” the family statement continued, reported the BBC. 

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

The statement added that Plowright — who first met Olivier while playing his daughter in The Entertainer in 1957 — is survived “by her loving family: Tamsin and Wilf, Julie-Kate and Dan, Richard, Shelley, Troy, Ali, Jeremy, step-granddaughter and great-granddaughter Kaya and Sophia, and great-granddaughter soon to arrive.”

In 2018, she appeared alongside fellow Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in Tea with the Dames, an insightful and hilarious look at their careers and what they remembered about them.

Following the announcement of her death, the Society of London Theaters said that all West End theaters in the British capital would dim their lights in tribute to Plowright at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21.