Home Alone ‘Pigeon Lady’ Brenda Fricker dies aged 81
Irish actress Brenda Fricker, best known for her roles in Home Alone 2 and Casualty, has passed away at the age of 81.
Fricker spent more than six decades on our screens and also made history when she became the first Irish actress to win an Oscar, earning the Academy Award for her performance as Daniel Day-Lewis' on-screen mother in My Left Foot.
She played the nurse Megan Roach on the popular medical drama series Casualty between 1986 and 2010 but will be fondly remembered by many for her performance alongside Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, where she portrayed the homeless Central Park 'pigeon lady'.
Her agent Phil Belfield confirmed that she had passed away on Friday 17 July.
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In a statement, he said: "We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her."
He 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."
After leaving Casualty and reaching her 70s, the Irish actress made the tragic admission that she was barely considered for any more roles due to her age, as she suggested that she felt 'invisible'.
"They don’t write for old women," the Home Alone 2 star said. "Shakespeare wrote for old women, but none of the young writers do. None.
"There are so many wonderful people around...interesting women with history and stories.
"Remember these words when you turn 70: you become invisible. Richard Harris said that to me while sitting on the rocks looking out over the Atlantic Ocean and it stuck in my head.
"On my 70th birthday I thought, ‘He’s wrong, I feel great.’ A week later I knew exactly what he meant. It’s weird.
"You have to shout to be heard. So it’s not that I’m out of work for any other reason - there are no parts to do."
It seems as if health issues have also plagued her in recent years as she admitted to The Guardian last year that she spendt 'every day in pain' and was constantly 'weary'.
She said: "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. I’ll probably live to be 100."
Despite her beloved role in a classic Christmas film, it seems as if the winter period was often a dark period for Fricker, having lost her ex-husband Barry in 1990 while she also had no children.
She previously admitted: "I would be lying if I said it would be a nice and happy Christmas because I’m old and I live alone," Fricker told Radio 1 in 2021, as per The Independent. "It can be very dark.
"I turn the phone off and put the blinds down. I do pre-record some good programmes and I have my dog and I get myself through it that way.
“I don’t want to be sounding kind of negative but it is a different kind of Christmas, that’s all. While I don’t find Christmas all that difficult, what I do find difficult is New Year’s Eve."
Fortunately, Fricker will be eternally immortalised thanks to her classic performance as the 'Pigeon Lady', even if many people had suspected that it might be Piers Morgan.
She will certainly be more fondly remembered than another person who made a cameo in that film, who shall remain nameless.
Topics: Academy Awards
James Moorhouse