Brenda Fricker, First Irish Oscar Winner, Dies at 81

Brenda Fricker, the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award, died Thursday night in Dublin at age 81 after a period of ill health, her agent Phil Belfield announced. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1990 for her role as Bridget Brown, the mother of Daniel Day-Lewis's character in My Left Foot (1989). Fricker also appeared in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994), and Albert Nobbs (2011). She acted on Ireland's first TV soap Tolka Row, Coronation Street, Casualty, and with Dublin's Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2020, The Irish Times ranked her No. 26 on its list of greatest Irish actors. Her memoir She Died Young: A Life in Fragments was published in 2025. Fricker was born in Dublin on February 17, 1945, to journalist Des Fricker and teacher Bina Fricker. She detailed a harrowing childhood including abuse, a bike accident, tuberculosis, multiple suicide attempts, and rape. She was married to director Barry Davis from 1979 until their divorce; he died in 1990.