The Crown and The Windsors star Haydn Gwynne has died aged 66

Haydn Gwynne, one of the stars of The Crown and The Windsors, as well as Drop the Dead Donkey, has died.

The actor died of cancer at the age of 66, having withdrawn from a play for health reasons in September.

In a statement confirming the news, her agent said: "It is with great sadness we are sharing with you that, following her recent diagnosis with cancer, the star of stage and screen Haydn Gwynne died in hospital in the small hours of Friday 20 October, surrounded by her beloved sons, close family and friends.

"We would like to thank the staff and teams at the Royal Marsden and Brompton Hospitals for their wonderful care over the last few weeks."

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The English actor also starred in shows like Peak Practice and Merseybeat during her career, and enjoyed a successful career on the stage as well.

She was nominated for both Tony and Olivier awards on Broadway and in London’s West End for her performance in Billy Elliott: The Musical.

Gwynne was forced to pull out of a play that she was involved with last month due to her illness.

The 66-year-old broke into the television world back in the late 1980s with drama Nice Work, before she came to greater fame and earned a BAFTA nomination for playing a journalist in the satirical Drop the Dead Donkey.

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Later in her career, she played Camilla in Channel 4’s comedy The Windsors, telling the Irish News that she wanted her to be ‘clearly the soap opera villainess’.

After that success, she went on to star in Rome as Julius Caesar’s wife Calpurnia, and Lady Susan Hussey, a minor royal who was forced to resign from the royal household because of a racism row, in the fifth series of hit Netflix drama The Crown.

Gwynne also had a role in BBC drama Silent Witness.

As well as for Billy Elliott, Gwynne received Olivier nominations for roles in City of Angels back in 1994, as well as for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 2015 and a performance in The Threepenny Opera in 2017.

Gwynne had been due to feature in a new London-based production of Old Friends by Stephen Sondheim, but had to leave the show in early September because of what was described as ‘sudden personal circumstances’.

Channel 4

Writer Jack Thorne said of Gwynne: “[She was] the kindest, loveliest soul and a wonderful performer.”

Playwright Jonathan Harvey said she was a ‘gifted and versatile all-rounder’.

Fellow actor Samuel West added: "This is a terrible loss.

“One of the nicest and one of the best."