“Dame Joan Plowright has died aged 95 (Picture: Nickelodeon Movies/Kobal/REX/Shu) Award-winning actress Dame Joan Plowright has died at the age of 95, her family has said. Dame Joan, who was the third wife and widow of Laurence Olivier, will be remembered for her six-decade career in acting. Theatres in London’s West End are to dim”, — write: metro.co.uk
Dame Joan Plowright has died aged 95 (Picture: Nickelodeon Movies/Kobal/REX/Shu) Award-winning actress Dame Joan Plowright has died at the age of 95, her family has said.
Dame Joan, who was the third wife and widow of Laurence Olivier, will be remembered for her six-decade career in acting.
Theatres in London’s West End are to dim their lights for two minutes in honour of Dame Joan after she died earlier this week.
A statement said: ‘It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on January 16 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall aged 95.
‘She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire.’
Born in Brigg, Lincolnshire on October 28, 1929, Dame Joan attended the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, and would go on to star in a number of huge stage plays, TV shows and films.
She was known forher Golden Globe award-winning performances in TV biopic Stalin and Enchanted April, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award.
She enjoyed seven decades in the entertainment industry, acting in various stage and TV shows (Picture: REX/Shutterstock) 
Dame Joan was married to famed director and actor Laurence Olivier (Picture:PA/PA Wire) Dame Joan also starred in Love You To Death with River Phoenix and The Spiderwick Chronichles. She was a star of the West End and Broadway before her international movie success, and was made a Dame in the 2003 New Years’ honours list.
She went on to star opposite Olivier in 1957’s The Entertainer, and married him four years later. Dame Joan also won a Tony Award for her performance in A Taste of Honey at the Lyceum Theatre in New York in 1960, while her screen career includes 8-0s and 90s films such as The Dressmaker and Tea with Mussolini.
She was his third wife and widow after he died in 1989 (Picture: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The statement continued: ‘She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories.
‘The family are deeply grateful to Jean Wilson and all those involved in her personal care over many years.
‘Joan 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 grand-daughter soon to arrive.
In her later years, Dame Joan had to give up acting because she went blind (Picture: Tea with the Dames/Field Day Films) 
She was made a Dame in 2004 Picture: STEFAN ROUSSEAU/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) ‘The family ask you to please respect their request for privacy at this time.
‘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…’
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