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Joan Plowright, celebrated star of stage and screen, recently died at the age of 95. While making the news public, her family said that she reportedly died quietly in her sleep at Denville Hall on January 16 while being surrounded by her family.
Confirming the same with BBC on Thursday, the family's statement read:
“She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire. She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories..”
The statement continued:
“The family are deeply grateful to Jean Wilson and all those involved in her personal care over many years.. The family ask you to please respect their request for privacy at this time..”
Plowright was a popular actress who got married twice in her life. In September 1953, she got married to actor Roger Gage for the first time. Then in 1961, she married fellow actor Laurence Olivier.
Joan Plowright was first married to Roger Gage and then to Laurence Olivier
Actor and director Roger Gage is well-known for his films Wyvern at War: The Story of the 43rd (Wessex Division) from June 1944 to V.E. Day (1965), High Water (1981), and Late Night Theatre (1972). From October 27, 1961, until 2018, he was married to Burda Cann.
Later, on September 19, 1953, he married Joan Plowright. However, on December 2, 1960, they got divorced. Then, on March 13, 2018, he passed away in Devon, England, UK.
In the meantime, after her divorce, Joan Plowright married Laurence Olivier and the two together married for 28 years.
Throughout his career, Oliver, an English actor and director, acted in over 50 movies. He also achieved a lot of success in television in the latter part of his career.
Olivier worked as an independent actor-manager in the 1950s. As the founding director of Britain's National Theatre from 1963 to 1973, he oversaw a resident company that produced a number of future stars.
He also played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1970) and the main role in Othello (1965).
Moreover, Olivier's filmography includes Wuthering Heights (1939), and Rebecca (1940). He also served as both actor and director in three Shakespearean films, Richard III (1955), Henry V (1944), and Hamlet (1948).
Spartacus (1960), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976), and The Boys from Brazil (1978) were also some of his later motion pictures. He then appeared on television in Brideshead Revisited (1981), King Lear (1983), Love Among the Ruins (1975), Long Day's Journey into Night (1973), and an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence (1960).
His three marriages were to actresses Joan Plowright from 1961 till his death, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, and Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940.
The late Joan Plowright first met Olivier in 1956, when the actor stopped by the young actress's dressing room following a performance of The Country Wife.
Eventually, they became friends. Joan Plowright later divorced Gage in 1960, and Olivier later divorced his ex-wife Leigh. Then, in March 1961, the pair tied the knot.
Later that year, they welcomed a boy, Richard, and two daughters, Tamsin Agnes Margaret in 1963 and Julie-Kate in 1966.
As a married couple, throughout their careers, Olivier and Plowright frequently worked together. Both performers played important parts in the 1963 adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and the 1970 film Three Sisters, which Olivier co-directed.
Both then starred in the 1978 film adaptation of Eduardo De Filippo's Saturday Sunday Monday and the television adaptation of James Bridie's humorous drama Daphne Laureola.
Meanwhile, Plowright's family statement further said that Tamsin and Wilf, Julie-Kate and Dan, Richard, Shelley, Troy, Ali, Jeremy, step-granddaughter and great-granddaughter Kaya and Sophia, and an upcoming great-granddaughter are among Joan's devoted family members who survive her.
