Brenda Fricker, who became the first Irish actress to win an Oscar for her turn opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in 1989’s “My Left Foot” and captured hearts as the Pigeon Lady in 1992’s “Home Alone 2,” died on Thursday in Dublin. She was 81.
Fricker’s agent, Phil Belfield, confirmed her death to the BBC on Friday. “We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her,” he said in a statement. “I was honored 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.”
A celebrated character actor of the stage and screen, Fricker won many accolades across her career, including the inaugural 2008 Maureen O’Hara award from the Kerry Film Festival, which honors women that have excelled on film. In 2020, she was ranked No. 26 on the Irish Times’ list of the greatest Irish film actors of all time. Aside from her work on “My Left Foot,” she is perhaps best remembered by general audiences as the Pigeon Lady from the popular Christmas film “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”
Fricker was born in Dublin on Feb. 17, 1945, to language teacher Bina Murphy and Desmond Frederick Fricker, a journalist for the Irish Times. Before becoming an actor, she initially wanted to be a journalist, and worked for the Irish Times as an assistant to the paper’s art editor. Her first film appearance was when she was 19, in a small uncredited part in the 1964 drama “Of Human Bondage.” She also had a minor appearance in the Irish soap opera “Tolka Row” that year.
