SHE WAS FAR MORE THAN THE ‘PIGEON LADY’ — BRENDA FRICKER MADE OSCAR HISTORY BEFORE WINNING THE HEARTS OF HOME ALONE FANS
Home Alone 2 ‘pigeon lady’ Brenda Fricker dead: Oscar-winning Irish actress, 81, who starred in My Left Foot, passes away a year after revealing she was ‘confined to bed’
The first Irish actress to win an Oscar, Brenda Fricker, who starred in Home Alone 2 and My Left Foot, has died aged 81, her agent has confirmed today.
Among the many roles Brenda played, she will be best remembered as the ‘pigeon lady’ in the iconic 1992 film Home Alone 2, opposite Macaulay Culkin.
In the box office smash, she plays a reclusive, homeless Central Park resident who befriends Kevin McCallister (Culkin).
Brenda died after a period of ill health, according to her agent Phil Belfield, who said: ‘We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her.
‘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.’
The news of her death comes a year after Brenda gave a rare interview and said that she was ‘confined to her bed’ in Dublin after a period of ill health.
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The first Irish actress to win an Oscar, Brenda Fricker, who starred in Home Alone 2 and My Left Foot, has died aged 81, her agent has confirmed today
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Brenda’s Best Supporting Actress prize at the 1990 Oscars made history as she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award
Brenda, who won Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards for My Left Foot in 1990 playing Daniel Day-Lewis’s on-screen mother, opened up about her health struggles.
She told how she was in pain every day and would become breathless just by talking, telling The Guardian: ‘I’ve never known tiredness ever in my life.’
Brenda heartbreakingly said: ‘I’m having a dreadful death. I’m just dying – every day in pain. I’ll probably live to be 100.’
She said that when she’s unable to sleep, she watches The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, adding: ‘It’s better than sex. It’s better than getting drunk. I just love it.’
Brenda, who was the daughter of RTE broadcaster Desmond Fricker and his wife Bina, was born and raised in Dublin.
Before taking up acting she was an assistant to the Irish Times’ Art Editor, before taking a small uncredited role in Human Bondage (1964).
She then appeared in Ireland’s first soap opera Tolka Row, before playing a staff nurse in iconic British soap Coronation Street.
One of her most memorable and iconic turns came as the pigeon lady in Central Park in the 1992 Home Alone sequel.
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Brenda died after a period of ill health, according to her agent Phil Belfield, who said: ‘We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her’ (pictured in 2014)
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For British soap fans, she is also known for her run as nurse Megan Roach in BBC medical drama Casualty from 1986 to 2010
She once told The Hard Shoulder: ‘Home Alone 2 was the biggest budget film I worked on. [This] meant that you were living, basically, in the lap of luxury.
‘All of my stuff was filmed in Central Park, and I was staying in the Plaza Hotel, the trailer – which I could have lived in for a month – were parked all along the footpath outside the hotel.’
She added: ‘It was luxury for me, I got paid a tonne of money to do it and had a wonderful time on it because nothing was rushed.
‘It was easy going; we had people like Joe Pesci on the set – who is one of the funniest men I’ve ever met. It was absolutely lovely’.
For British soap fans, she is also known for her run as nurse Megan Roach in BBC medical drama Casualty from 1986 to 2010.
Brenda’s Best Supporting Actress prize at the 1990 Oscars made history as she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award.
In her acceptance speech, she dedicated the award to ‘all the people of Ireland’.
Her career spanned over six decades across the stage and screen.
Her other credits included roles in high profile projects like So I Married An Axe Murderer with Mike Myers and A Time To Kill alongside Matthew McConaughey.
Earlier this year, it was announced by Dublin City Council that Brenda would be given the Freedom of Dublin due to her significant contribution to Irish arts and culture.
SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15985175/Brenda-Fricker-Home-Left-Foot-died.html