Brenda Fricker | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Fricker at the62nd Academy Awards in March 1990 | |
| Born | (1945-02-17)17 February 1945 (age 80) Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1964–present |
| Spouse | |
Brenda Fricker (born 17 February 1945) is an Irish actress, whose career has spanned six decades on stage and screen. She has appeared in more than 30 films and television roles. In 1990, she became the first Irish actress to win anAcademy Award, earning the award forBest Supporting Actress for the biopicMy Left Foot (1989). She also appeared in films such asThe Field (1990),Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992),So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993),Angels in the Outfield (1994),A Time to Kill (1996),Veronica Guerin (2003),Inside I'm Dancing (2004) andAlbert Nobbs (2011).
In 2008, Fricker was honoured with the inaugural Maureen O'Hara Award at theKerry Film Festival. In 2020,The Irish Times ranked her 26th on its list of the greatest Irish film actors of all time.
Fricker was born inDublin, Ireland.[1] Her mother "Bina" (née Murphy) was fromGneeveguilla,Co. Kerry. Bina was a teacher of languages at Stratford College inRathgar,[2] and her father, Desmond Frederick Fricker, served in theDepartment of Agriculture and as 'Fred Desmond' a broadcaster with RTÉ and a journalist forThe Irish Times.[3]
Before becoming an actress, Fricker was assistant to the art editor of theIrish Times, with hopes of becoming a reporter. At age 19, she became an actress "by chance".[4] Her feature film career began with a small uncredited part in the 1964 filmOf Human Bondage, based on the 1915novel byW. Somerset Maugham. She also appeared inTolka Row, Ireland's first soap opera.
One of Fricker's first TV roles was staff nurse Maloney inCoronation Street, debuting on 10 January 1977. Brenda's character attended on the birth ofTracy Barlow on 24 January 1977's episode. Fricker came to wider public attention in theUnited Kingdom in another nursing role, as Megan Roach in theBBC One television drama seriesCasualty. Fricker bowed out as Megan in December 1990, after playing the character in 65 episodes, because she believed her character had "started off with a wonderful sense of humour, [but] lost it all and all she ever seemed to do was push a trolley around and offer tea and sympathy".[5] In February 1998 she appeared in two episodes, with Megan attending the wedding of her former colleagues Charlie Fairhead and Barbara 'Baz' Samuels. In 2007, she returned for a single episode forRed Nose Day. The episode was written byRichard Curtis.[citation needed] Fricker's final appearance as Megan was in August 2010, when the character took a lethal cocktail of drugs to end her life.
Fricker found international acclaim after she won theAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1990 for her performance asChristy Brown's mother inMy Left Foot (1989). In her acceptance speech, Brenda thanked Brown "just for being alive" and also dedicated the Oscar to Brown's mother, saying "anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one of these". For her performance, Fricker was also nominated for aGolden Globe Award and she won theLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress as well. She rejoinedMy Left Foot writer and directorJim Sheridan to make the 1990 filmThe Field, starring alongsideRichard Harris as Maggie McCabe, the wife of Harris' "Bull" McCabe. She continued her television work during this period, starring in theAustralian-produced short seriesBrides of Christ (1991) and the miniseriesSeekers (1992) alongsideJosette Simon, produced bySarah Lawson.
Buoyed by her Oscar win, Fricker went on to appear in several high-profile Hollywood films, most notably 1992'sHome Alone 2: Lost in New York as theCentral Park Pigeon Lady. In 1993, she portrayed May Mackenzie, theWeekly World News-obsessedScottish mother ofMike Myers' Charlie Mackenzie, inSo I Married an Axe Murderer, and then portrayedJoseph Gordon-Levitt's character's motherly caretaker Maggie in the 1994 family comedyAngels in the Outfield. One of her last Hollywood film roles came withA Time to Kill, as Ethel Twitty (loyal secretary toMatthew McConaughey's Jake Brigance), after which she has focused almost exclusively on film and television work inCanada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. In 2003, she played Bernie Guerin, mother ofVeronica Guerin (played byCate Blanchett) in thefilm of the same name. She then played nurse Eileen in the filmInside I'm Dancing. In 2007, she starred inHow About You the film based on a short story about people living in a residential nursing home written byMaeve Binchy, playing Heather Nightangle. Other important roles wereOmagh in 2004 as police Ombudsman Nuala O' Loan, as Graiine McFadden in the TVdocudramaNo Tears about the women treated with the blood productAnti D in the 1970s who had been contaminated with Hepatitis C, and as Aunt Maeve inDurango in 1999, based on the novel byJohn B. Keane.
Fricker has appeared inClosing the Ring,Richard Attenborough's post-World War II drama, also starringShirley MacLaine,Christopher Plummer andMischa Barton. In 2012, a high-profile supporting role inAlbert Nobbs earned Fricker an Irish Film Award nomination, and along withOlympia Dukakis she became half of the first pair of Oscar-winning actors to play a same-sex couple inCloudburst.
In 2021 Fricker joined the cast of the TV adaptation ofHolding, based on the book of the same name byGraham Norton, marking her first major onscreen role in six years.[6]
Fricker lives inthe Liberties, Dublin. She was married to Barry Davis for 15 years until they divorced in 1988 only to later rekindle their friendship in 1990. Davis died later as a result of falling down a flight of stairs under the influence of alcohol which he had battled. This loss devastated Fricker.[7] She was pregnant six times with Davis, but each pregnancy ended in miscarriage. She said that her loves include her pet dogs, drinkingGuinness, reading poetry and playing snooker (she once stated that she had taken on the whole crew ofMy Left Foot. "I played pool against 17 of them, and beat them all," Fricker said).[4]
In 2012, Fricker said "Of all the films I’ve made, only three do I remember where I felt I’d moved forward as an actress:Cloudburst,My Left Foot andThe Field."[8]
Whilst appearing onThe Tommy Tiernan Show in 2021, Fricker shared that she had battled severe depression for much of her life, including being hospitalised many times.[9]
In 1989 she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award for her role inMy Left Foot, in the Best Supporting Actress category. In 2008 Fricker was honoured with the inaugural Maureen O'Hara Award at theKerry Film Festival.[10] In 2020,The Irish Times ranked her 26th on its list of the greatest Irish film actors of all time.[11]
