Joan Plowright
Joan Plowright (born October 28, 1929, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England) is an English dramatic actress who found success on both the stage and screen.
Plowright received her dramatic training at the Laban Art of Movement Studio in Manchester and at the Old Vic Theatre School in London. She made her first appearances on stage in 1951, played with an Old Vic touring company in South Africa in 1952, and made her debut in London in The Duenna in 1954. She continued to perform on the London stage until 1958, when she made her first appearance in New York City. Plowright’s dual performances in two plays by Eugène Ionesco as both an old woman and a 17-year-old girl demonstrated her range and versatility as an actress and brought her wide critical acclaim.
Plowright’s most notable stage performances included those in A Taste of Honey (1960), Saint Joan (1963), and Saturday, Sunday, Monday (1973). She also performed on television and in such motion pictures as Moby Dick (1956), The Entertainer (1960), Three Sisters (1974; the latter two with her husband, Sir Laurence Olivier), and Equus (1977).
In the 1980s and ’90s Plowright starred in such films as Brimstone and Treacle (1982), The Dressmaker (1988), and Jane Eyre (1996). For her role as a haughty know-it-all in Enchanted April (1991), Plowright was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award. In 2005 she starred as a lonely widow who befriends a young writer in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005). Plowright’s later movies included the children’s movies Curious George (2006), for which she supplied the voice of Miss Plushbottom, and The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008). She later had a cameo in the thriller Knife Edge (2009), which was her last feature film. She subsequently retired from acting because of macular degeneration, which ultimately led to a loss of eyesight.
Plowright was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2003 New Year’s Honours list. She later appeared with Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Eileen Atkins in the documentary Nothing Like a Dame (2018; also called Tea with the Dames).