Jeanne Lapotaire, the veteran British stage actress whose “heart-wrenching” role as tragic French diva Edith Piaf won both Tony and Olivier awards, died on March 5. The Guardian I mentioned. She was 81 years old.
Lapotaire has performed with the Bristol Old Vic, the National Theater (under founder Laurence Olivier), The Young Vic – which she co-founded in 1970 – and the Royal Shakespeare Company during her long career.
She was appointed Prime Minister last year and attended the investiture at Windsor Castle on February 17.
Lapotaire was starring as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s British tour Master’s degree When, during a break in Paris in early 2000, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.
She recovered after spending a period in intensive care and two major surgeries, and wrote her memoirs, Time is out of mindpublished in 2003. (Her first memoir, Everyone’s daughter, no one’s child(Published in 1989.)
She returned to acting in 2004 and rejoined the RSC in 2013 to play the Duchess of Gloucester in the David Tennant-starrer. Richard II. The following year, she appeared as a Russian aristocrat in a film Downton Abbey Christmas special.
She then played the Greek Princess Alice in two episodes of the Netflix series The crown In 2019; She appeared in a remake of Daphne du Maurier Rebecca Which starred Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas; She appeared in the 2023 Paramount+ miniseries Burning girls.
Lapotaire spent six months learning how to sing for the role of Piaf, first at the RSC Theatre, then in the West End, where she won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in 1979, and then on Broadway in 1981, when she received a Tony.
in New York Timesreviewer Frank Rich wrote: “Miss Lapotaire’s performance burns with such heart-stopping intensity that one never questions her right to stand in for ‘The Little Bird’.”
After her Broadway win, she chose to stay in the United States for a few years, hoping to break into film, but she called it “a mistake. I didn’t realize how Hollywood had devoted itself entirely to physical perfection. At the age of 40, I suddenly realized that I was not a ‘witch’ in the accepted sense.” Telegraph male.
Lapotaire was born on 26 December 1944 in Ipswich, Suffolk, and was raised by her French teenage mother, Grace. After being rejected by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, she studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theater for two years, then joined the Olivier National Theater in 1967.
At the Young Vic in London, she played the title role Taming of the Shrew, Oedipus and Measure to measure Before being accepted by the RSC in 1974. Over the years, she starred in productions As you want it, Twelfth night, Macbeth, Room with a view, village (opposite Kenneth Branagh), Henry VIII and henry f.
She also starred in a one-woman show, Shakespeare as I knew it.
Her resume included film Antony and Cleopatra (1972), Trevor Nunn Lady Jane (1986), James Ivory Survival Picasso (1996) and Shoot fish (1997).
Survivors include her son, screenwriter and director Rowan Joffe. Her second husband was Oscar-nominated director Roland Joffé (Killing fields, Mission); They were married from 1971 until their divorce in 1980.
