Brenda Fricker, who became the primary Irish actress to win an Oscar for her turn opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in 1989’s “” and captured hearts because the Pigeon Lady in 1992’s “Home Alone 2,” died on Thursday in Dublin. She was 81.
Fricker’s agent, Phil Belfield, confirmed her death to the BBC on Friday. “We are going to never see her like again and the world is lesser for the shortage of her,” he said in a press release. “I used to be honored to know, love and work along with her and she is going to all the time have a spot in my heart and in the guts of so many film and TV fans the world over.”
A celebrated character actor of the stage and screen, Fricker won many accolades across her profession, including the inaugural 2008 Maureen O’Hara award from the Kerry Film Festival, which honors women which have excelled on film. In 2020, she was ranked No. 26 on the Irish Times’ list of the best Irish film actors of all time. Other than her work on “My Left Foot,” she is maybe best remembered by general audiences because the Pigeon Lady from the favored Christmas film “Home Alone 2: Lost in Latest York.”
Fricker was born in Dublin on Feb. 17, 1945, to language teacher Bina Murphy and Desmond Frederick Fricker, a journalist for the Irish Times. Before becoming an actor, she initially desired to be a journalist, and worked for the Irish Times as an assistant to the paper’s art editor. Her first film appearance was when she was 19, in a small uncredited part within the 1964 drama “Of Human Bondage.” She also had a minor appearance within the Irish soap opera “Tolka Row” that yr.
Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Fricker would seem in various British soap operas and movies, mostly in small roles. In 1977, she had a brief four-episode arc within the ITV soap “Coronation Street” as a nurse who delivered the newborn of the principal villain Tracy Barlow (played on the time by Christabel Finch). Other movies and shows she appeared in include “The Quatermass Conclusion” in 1978, “The Music Machine” in 1979, “Bloody Kids” in 1980 and “Cockles” in 1984.
Fricker first gained attention from audiences when she starred in the unique forged of “Casualty,” the long-running BBC medical drama following the Accident and Emergency Department of the fictional Holby City hospital. The show, which continues to be running, debuted in 1986, and Fricker starred as Nurse Megan Roach from the primary episode. Megan was one among the most-focused on characters for the primary five seasons of the show, until Fricker left after 65 episodes. She would return for guest appearances in 1998 and 2007, and in 2010 returned for a tragic four-episode arc which ended with Megan dying by suicide.
Within the biographical drama “My Left Foot,” Fricker portrayed Bridget Fagan Brown, a protective and loving mother who gave birth to just about two dozen children (nine of whom died in infancy) including Christy Brown, an Irish author and painter born with cerebral palsy. The film, which was based on Brown’s 1954 memoir, was directed by Jim Sheridan and starred Day-Lewis as Brown, with Ray McAnally, Hugh O’Conor, Fiona Shaw, and Cyril Cusack in supporting roles. For her performance as Bridget, Fricker won best supporting actress on the 1990 Academy Awards. During her speech, she memorably dedicated her award to the lady she portrayed, saying: “Anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one among these.”
Following the success of “My Left Foot,” Fricker began appearing as a personality actor in several high-profile movies. In 1990, she starred in Sheridan’s follow-up to “My Left Foot,” “The Field,” because the wife of British farmer Bull McCabe. Two years later, she would seem in “Home Alone 2: Lost in Latest York,” in her memorable role because the outwardly scary but deeply kind Pigeon Woman that Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) encounters in Central Park. Other movies through the ’90s included 1993’s “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” where she portrayed May, the eccentric, Weekly World News-obsessed Scottish mother of Mike Meyers’ Charlie; 1994’s “Angels within the Outfield,” where she played Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s foster mother; and 1996’s thriller “A Time to Kill,” where her character Ethyl was the loyal secretary to Matthew McConaughey.
After the ’90s, Fricker primarily worked in Irish and British movies. She received three Irish Film & Television Academy Award nominations for her performances in 2003’s “Veronica Guerin,” opposite Cate Blanchett; 2004’s “Inside I’m Dancing” with James McAvoy; and 2011’s “Albert Nobbs,” which starred Glenn Close and Janet McTeer. Other outstanding credits include 2007’s “Closing the Ring” and 2011’s “Cloudburst.”
After largely retiring from screen acting in 2015, Fricker returned in 2021 for an episode of the Canadian TV series “Cam Boy” and likewise appeared in Graham Norton’s ITV series “Holding” in 2022. The subsequent yr, she featured within the Channel 5 drama series “The Catch” and had a voice role within the film “The Miracle Club.”
Along with her film work, Fricker also had an extended profession on stage, acting in productions for the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse.
Fricker was predeceased by film and TV director Barry Davis, whom she was married to from 1979 to 1988 and remained close friends with. He died in 1990.