R.I.P. Brenda Fricker, actor in Home Alone 2 and My Left Foot Oscar winner

In 1990, Fricker became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award for her performance as Bridget Fagan Brown—the mother to Daniel Day-Lewis’ Christy Brown—in My Left Foot. The role and the win brought her international attention, and a litany of Hollywood roles followed in the 1990s, including in A Time To Kill, Angels In The Outfield, and So I Married An Axe Murderer. Perhaps the most recognizable role from this post-Oscar period was that of the Central Park Pigeon Lady, who Kevin McAllister meets in Home Alone 2. 

Born in 1945 in Dublin, Fricker hoped to be a reporter as a teen. At 19, she worked as the assistant to the arts editor and said that acting came by chance, according to Holby TV. She had early roles in Ireland’s first soap opera Tolka Row. She landed bigger, long-running roles on ITV soap opera Coronation Street and BBC medical drama Casualty. She appeared in Casualty as Megan Roach for 65 episodes from 1986 until 1990, though she would sporadically return for occasional appearances until 2010. “People thought I left because I won the Oscar, but I had already decided to go by then,” she said later. “Oscar or no Oscar, Megan didn’t develop in the way she was meant to.” 

Fricker’s international breakout came in 1989 with her role in My Left Foot. As Bridget Fagan Brown, Fricker portrayed the mother who had 22 children, nine of whom died during infancy. One of the surviving children was Christy (Day-Lewis), who had cerebral palsy and went on to become a writer and artist. (In her Holby interview, she shared her love of playing snooker, saying, “I once took on the whole crew of My Left Foot, I played pool against 17 of them, and beat them all!”) Her Oscar win led to a period of working in the United States, but she ultimately chose to go back to British and Irish productions after the 1990s. Credits in this period included Veronica Guerin, in which she appeared opposite Cate Blanchett, and Albert Nobbs, which starred Glenn Close. She largely retired in 2015, though she appeared in a handful of TV episodes well into the 2020s, per Variety. Her final on-screen role came in Tadhg O’Sullivan’s The Swallow, which premiered in 2024.