Phyllida Law, Actress and Mother of Sophie and Emma Thompson, Dies at 94
Phyllida Law, the Scottish actress of stage and screen and the mother of actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson, has died. She was 94.
Her death was announced by her manager, Jacky Leggo, who said in a statement that she “died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all her family.”
Law appeared with Emma in films including Peter’s Friends (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993) — both directed by then-son-in-law Kenneth Branagh — and Junior (1994), and they portrayed mother and daughter in The Winter Guest (1997), directed by Alan Rickman.
She acted alongside younger daughter Sophie in Jane Austen’s Emma (1996), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and they would work together on TV series including Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Timeshift and Doc Martin.
Without her kids, she landed in features including The Time Machine (2002), Miss Potter (2006), Albert Nobbs (2011) and A Little Chaos (2014) and recurred as the aunt of Stephen Fry’s lawyer on the 2007-09 ITV series Kingdom.
She received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for her services to drama and charitable causes in 2014.
The daughter of a newspaperman, Phyllida Ann Law was born in Glasgow on May 8, 1932. She was accepted into the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, intending to train as a stage designer before deciding that she wanted to act.
She appeared in Bristol Old Vic productions, married fellow actor Eric Thompson in 1957 and started showing up on television on programs including ITV Play of the Week, Dr. Finlay’s Casebook and Dixon of Dock Green.
She joined the original 1967 production of Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg when it made its way to the West End and in 1971 worked alongside Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father.
She later appeared in plays including Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus, Somerset Maugham’s For Services Rendered (for the National Theatre) and J.B. Priestley’s When We Are Married and played Jacqueline in the musical version of La Cage Aux Folles.
Law was married to Thompson until his death from a heart attack at age 53 in 1982, when Emma was 21 and Sophie was 18.
“We know mum so much better because we spent so much time together, we started going on holidays and traveling together, and we all live on the same street, within three doors of each other,” Emma said in 1997. “We’re far closer-knit because of [her dad’s] death in our lives.
“Also, we’re three actresses who always had to earn our own living, we’ve never been supported by anyone. My mum always worked, I always worked when I was married, and my sister works. So that’s created quite a strong kind of triumvirate. It’s a little alarming, actually.”
Survivors also include her grandchildren, actress Gaia Wise, Tindyebwa Wise, Ernie Lumsden and Walter Lumsden.