Acclaimed film, TV and stage actor Phyllida Law, whose daughters are actors Emma and Sophie Thompson, has died, aged 94.
The news was confirmed by her manager, Jacky Leggo, who said the star “died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family”.
Law’s acting career began in 1932, when she won a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre school, where she originally wanted to be a stage designer. After realising she liked performing, in what she described as a “happy mistake”, Law racked up many roles in Bristol Old Vic plays, where she met her future husband, Eric Thompson.
The pair married in 1957 and remained together until Eric’s death from a heart attack, aged 53, in 1982.
It was stage roles opposite Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1971, and Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973 that established Law as a major stage performer in the 1960s.
Her film credits started in the 1980s, and in the 1990s, with Law regularly appearing on-screen opposite her daughters Emma and Sophie. These projects included Peter’s Friends (1992), which was directed by Emma’s then-husband, Kenneth Branagh, as well as Branagh’s version of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), also starring Emma.
In 1997, she appeared once again alongside Emma in Alan Rickman’s directorial debut The Winter Guest, with the pair playing a mother and a daughter. She also had an uncredited role in 1994 comedy Junior, starring Emma and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a voice role in 2005 fantasy film Nanny McPhee, written by and starring Emma.
Law also appeared as Mrs Bates in Emma, the 1996 Jane Austen adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow, in which Sophie played her daughter.
Law’s other film roles included The Time Machine (2002), Miss Potter (2006) and Albert Nobbs (2011), as well as another project directed by Rickman, 2014's A Little Chaos.
Elsewhere, Law had small roles in a variety of British TV shows, including Taggart, Rosemary & Thyme, Foyle's War, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks – and had a starring role in 2007 series Kingdom. The comedy-drama followed a solicitor, played by Stephen Fry, dealing with strange locals of the Norfolk town where he lives.
She received an OBE for services to drama and charitable causes in 2014.
Reflecting on her relationship with Law, Emma said in 1997: “Our relationship is unusual, and the reason is that there’s three of us in the family left now, me, my sister, and my mother, because my father died when my sister was 18 and I was 21.
“Now I think if my father was still alive, it would be very different. I mean, we know mum so much better because we spent so much time together.”
She continued: “We’re far closer-knit because of that event in our lives – also we’re three actresses who always had to earn our own living. We’ve never been supported by anyone.”
In 2011, Law called her husband the biggest influence in her life, telling The Guardian: “He was a very controversial, witty, secret personage, and was a tremendously powerful personality. He was top dog.”
