Acclaimed film, TV and stage actor Phyllida Law, whose daughters are actors Emma and Sophie Thompson, has died, aged 94. The news was confirmed by her manager, Jacky Leggo, who said the star “died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family”. Law’s acting career began in 1932, when she won a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre school, where she originally wanted to be a stage designer.
After pivoting to performing, she racked up many roles in Bristol Old Vic plays – and met her future husband, Eric Thompson. The pair married in 1957 and remained together until Eric’s death from a heart attack, aged 53, in 1982. It was stage roles opposite Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1971, and Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973 that established Law as a major stage performer in the 1960s.
Her film credits started in the 1980s, and in the 1990s, Law regularly appeared on-screen opposite her daughters Emma and Sophie. These projects included Peter’s Friends (1992), which was directed by Emma’s then-husband, Kenneth Branagh, as well as Branagh’s version of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), also starring Emma. In 1997, she appeared once again alongside Emma in Alan Rickman’s directorial debut The Winter Guest, with the pair playing a mother and a daughter.
Law also appeared as Mrs Bates Emma, the 1996 Jane Austen adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow, in which Sophie played her daughter. New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. Law continued to appear in high-prestige TV shows, including Waking the Dead, Rosemary & Thyme, Foyle’s War, Doc Martin and Agatha Christie’s Poirot, and had a recurring role in the Stephen Fry lawyer comedy drama Kingdom as Fry’s Aunt Auriel. Her final screen role was in the 2020 romance Then Came You, written by and starring Kathie Lee Gifford.
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