Joan Plowright, perhaps the greatest Anglophone actor of the 20th century and the widow of Laurence Oliver, has died. She was 95.

Despite the age difference — Olivier was 51, Plowright 27 — the actor was smitten with the star. "I went to see The Country Wife," he wrote in his autobiography, Confessions Of An Actor, "and was entranced by the Margery Pinchwife of Miss Joan Plowright, whose very name was enough to make me think thoughts of love."

DAME Joan Plowright was married to one of the most renowned actors of all time — Lawrence Olivier. Joan sadly passed away surrounded by her family on January 16, 2025. A family statement said:

Theaters in London's West End will dim their lights for two minutes in honor of the legendary actress, who was also nominated for an Oscar and Emmy during her storied career.

Joan Plowright is survived by three children, whom she shared with her late husband, Laurence Olivier. Learn more about them here.

The renowned British actress Joan Plowright, who was married to the stage legend Laurence Olivier for 28 years, died on Thursday aged 95. She passed in her native England, her daughter said, at a retirement home for actors in the country’s south.

LONDON -- Award-winning British actor Joan Plowright, who was one half of a theatrical power couple after marrying Laurence Olivier, has died. She was 95. In a statement Friday, her family said Plowright died the previous day at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.

LONDON, Jan. 17 (Reuters) — British actor Joan Plowright, winner of two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award, has died aged 95, her family said on Friday. Plowright made her on-screen debut in 1956’s “Moby Dick” before gaining wider recognition in the 1960 film adaptation of “The Entertainer” alongside Laurence Olivier, whom she later married.

LONDON -- Acclaimed British actress Dame Joan Plowright, widow of Sir Laurence Olivier, has died at the age of 95.

A Tony Award winner in 1961 for Tony Richardson and George Devine’s A Taste of Honey and an Oscar nominee for Mike Newell’s Enchanted April (1991), Plowright belonged to a celebrated group of British actresses (Judi Dench and Maggie Smith among them) who came into their own in the 1960s and ’70s.

Dame Joan Plowright, iconic British actress, and National Theatre pioneer, dies at 95, leaving a legacy across six decades of screen.