LONDON — Brenda Fricker, the acclaimed Irish actor who made history with her Oscar-winning performance in “My Left Foot,” has died at the age of 81.
Fricker died Thursday night in Dublin following a period of ill health, her agent, Phil Belfield, confirmed in a statement.
A celebrated character actor with a career spanning six decades, Fricker became the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award when she took home the 1990 Oscar for best supporting actress. Her winning role was Bridget Fagan Brown, the fierce and devoted mother of Christy Brown, the Irish writer and painter born with cerebral palsy who could control only his left foot. Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrayed Christy Brown, also won best actor for the film.
“We will never see her like again, and the world is lesser for the lack of her,” Belfield said. “I was honored 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.”
Across a body of work that included more than 90 film and television credits between 1964 and 2024, Fricker built a reputation for performances marked by warmth, grit and emotional precision. To many audiences, she was also beloved for her role in the 1992 holiday sequel “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” playing the homeless “Pigeon Lady” who forms an unlikely friendship with Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister in Central Park.
Her television and film work ranged widely. Fricker was part of the original cast of the BBC medical drama “Casualty,” and she later appeared opposite Cate Blanchett in “Veronica Guerin,” the film about the Irish investigative journalist murdered in 1996.
Born in Dublin in 1945, Fricker was honored by her native city earlier this year with the Freedom of the City, Dublin’s highest civic distinction.
In her autobiography, “She Died Young: A Life in Fragments,” Fricker wrote candidly about joyful childhood adventures with her sister Grania as well as deeply painful experiences, including sexual violence and mental health struggles that led to several periods of institutionalization. Published in September 2025, the memoir went on to appear on the Irish Sunday Times bestseller list.
Simon Harris, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, said the country had lost a national treasure.
“She truly was among the greatest exports this country has ever produced and an ambassador for Irish talent on the world stage,” he said. “Quite simply, we will never see the like of her ever again.
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