Brenda Fricker, Oscar winner and Home Alone 2 favorite, dies at 81
The Dublin-born actor won an Academy Award for My Left Foot and later played the Central Park Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
Brenda Fricker, the Dublin-born actor who won an Oscar for My Left Foot and later became familiar to family-film fans as the Central Park Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has died at 81.
Her agent, Phil Belfield, confirmed that Fricker died after a spell of ill health. In a statement, Belfield said: “We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her.”
Belfield added: “I was honoured 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.”
Fricker was born in Dublin in 1945. Before acting became her career, she worked as a journalist, then moved into television. Her early screen work included roles on the British soaps and dramas Coronation Street and Casualty.
On Casualty, Fricker played Megan Roach across 65 episodes, a role that made her a familiar face on British television before international film success arrived.
That breakthrough came with Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot, in which Fricker played Bridget Fagan Brown, mother of Christy Brown, portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis. The film told the story of Brown, an Irish man born with cerebral palsy who could control only his left foot.
Fricker and Day Lewis both won Academy Awards for their performances in the film. Fricker’s win made her the first Irish actress to receive an Oscar. She took the prize over nominees including Julia Roberts and Anjelica Huston.
Two years later, Fricker appeared in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, playing the Central Park Pigeon Lady. The role introduced her to another audience through one of the best-known family comedies of the early 1990s.
Her screen career continued with parts in films including So I Married an Axe Murderer, Moll Flanders, Veronica Guerin and Albert Nobbs.
Across television and film, Fricker built a career that stretched from newsroom beginnings to British TV staples, Oscar-winning drama and a holiday movie seen by generations.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.