Brenda Fricker, an esteemed Academy Award-winning actress, has passed away at the age of 81.
“We will never see her again, and the world is lesser for the lack of her,” said her agent, Phil Belfield, in a statement to the BBC on Friday, July 17. “I was honored to know, love, and work with her, and she will always hold a place in my heart and in the hearts of countless film and TV fans worldwide.”
Belfield also shared with Hello! that Fricker passed away following “a period of ill health,” though the exact cause of her death has not been disclosed.
The renowned actress had previously spoken about her health issues just a year before her passing.
In a September 2025 interview with The Guardian, Fricker expressed, “I’m out of breath just talking. I’ve never known tiredness ever in my life. Weary. Will I ever get up again? I’m having a dreadful death. I’m just dying, every day in pain.”
The Guardian reported that she was confined to bed rest during this time, which led her to impart a brief life lesson.
“Do everything while you’re young,” she advised. “Just do it.”
Fricker, who earned an Oscar in 1990 for her performance in My Left Foot, also gained recognition for her roles as nurse Megan Roach in BBC’s Casualty and as the “pigeon lady” in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Reflecting on her time filming Home Alone 2, Fricker told The Guardian that she would finish each day “covered in pigeon s***,” which is when she met fellow actor Donald Trump, who appeared in the film. Trump, who is the U.S. president at 80, had a cameo in the movie. Fricker remarked, “It was like I’d jumped into a pigsty, but he was very polite about it. He just said, ‘How’s it going?’”
Fricker also reminisced about working with Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrayed her son in My Left Foot.
“I’m fond of him. A good man, great morals. But he’s a f***ing method actor. I mean, we all have a method,” she shared of Day-Lewis, who was 69 at the time. “I don’t mind another method actor, but if they interfere with my little method, then fuck off, like, you know? I’ll be getting a phone call from Daniel. He phones me on occasion, tells me I’m being bold.”
In her personal life, Fricker was married to the late TV director Barry Davis for 15 years before they divorced in 1988.
“He was a wonderful, interesting, lovely man,” Fricker recalled in a 2015 Irish radio interview. “We kept seeing each other, we were madly in love. On the day we got divorced, we held hands and went off to the movies, it was ridiculous.”
