Margaret Tyzack, who won the Best Actress Olivier Award in 2009, has died at the age of 79.
The actress, who passed away on Saturday following a short illness, had audiences and critics in fits of laughter with her portrayal of Mrs St Maugham in Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse in 2008, for which she won the second Olivier of her long career.
Tyzack, who was made a CBE in the 2010 New Year Honours, made an impact in her early career with roles in television series The First Churchills – for which she won a BAFTA – and The Forstyte Saga, as well as the film I, Claudius.
On stage she worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, collecting her first Olivier for Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf at the National Theatre in 1981. Her performance opposite Maggie Smith in Lettice And Lovage took her to Broadway, where she won a Tony Award in 1990. Her later London stage roles included Southwark Fair at the National Theatre and An Inspector Calls, The Importance Of Being Earnest and Auntie And Me in the West End. Her last stage role was in Phèdre opposite Helen Mirren at the National Theatre in 2009.
Tyzack’s film work stretched from modern classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange to more recent films Bright Young Things and Match Point.
CB