{"id":643865,"date":"2026-08-18T16:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643865\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:10:12","slug":"phyllida-law-actor-and-mother-of-emma-thompson-dies-aged-94-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643865\/","title":{"rendered":"Phyllida Law: Actor and mother of Emma Thompson dies aged 94 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phyllida Law, whose prolific acting career encompassed a wide range of stage, TV and film roles \u2013 a number of which were alongside her daughters Emma<\/a> and Sophie Thompson \u2013 has died aged 94. Her personal manager Jacky Leggo said in a statement that she \u201cdied supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family\u201d.<\/p>\n

Born in Glasgow in 1932, Law was accepted at Bristol Old Vic Theatre school \u2013 initially intending to be a stage designer but then switching to acting. She appeared in a number of Bristol Old Vic productions in the 1950s, and it was there she met Eric Thompson, a fellow actor, whom she married in 1957.<\/p>\n

Law broke into TV in the late 1950s, with numerous appearances on screen throughout the 1960s in shows such as Dr Finlay\u2019s Casebook, Dixon of Dock Green and The Troubleshooters. By the end of the decade she appeared in significant stage roles, including replacing Carole Boyer in the original 1967 production of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg after it transferred to Comedy Theatre in London from the Citizens in Glasgow, and appearing alongside Alec Guinness in both the first run of John Mortimer\u2019s A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1971, and Alan Bennett\u2019s Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973. She also joined the UK\u2019s National Theatre, appearing in 1979 in Somerset Maugham\u2019s For Services Rendered and JB Priestley\u2019s When We Are Married, and was cast in the first London run of the English-language musical version of La Cage aux Folles.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I exist between them\u2019: Emma Thompson on living with her mother and daughterOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

From the late 1980s she achieved more prominence in film, appearing alongside daughter Emma in Peter\u2019s Friends (directed by Thompson\u2019s then husband Kenneth Branagh<\/a>), Much Ado About Nothing (again with Thompson and Branagh), and the Gwyneth Paltrow-led adaptation of Jane Austen\u2019s Emma alongside her other daughter Sophie. Law then appeared with Emma \u2013 playing mother and daughter \u2013 in The Winter Guest, Alan Rickman\u2019s<\/a> feature film directing debut, which won considerable acclaim.<\/p>\n

Law continued to appear in high-prestige TV shows, including Waking the Dead, Rosemary & Thyme, Foyle\u2019s War, Doc Martin and Agatha Christie\u2019s Poirot, and had a recurring role in the Stephen Fry<\/a> lawyer comedy drama Kingdom as Fry\u2019s Aunt Auriel. Her final screen role was in the 2020 romance Then Came You, written by and starring Kathie Lee Gifford.<\/p>\n

Law was married to Thompson until his death in 1982, and is survived by their children Emma and Sophie. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phyllida Law, whose prolific acting career encompassed a wide range of stage, TV and film roles \u2013 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,53241,117,19,17,107597,53332],"class_list":["post-643865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-eire","tag-emma-thompson","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kenneth-branagh","tag-stephen-fry"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117117388440719269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}