Brenda Fricker

Brenda Fricker (born 17 February 1945) is an Irish actress of stage and screen. She has appeared in more than 30 films and television roles. In 1990, she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award, earning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in My Left Foot (1989). As of 2014, she has tentatively retired from acting.[1]
== Early life ==
Fricker was born in Dublin, Ireland.[2] Her mother, "Bina" (née Murphy), was a teacher at Stratford College, and her father, Desmond Frederick Fricker, was an officer in the Department of Agriculture and a journalist for The Irish Times.[3] In her teens, she aspired to follow her parents' footsteps into journalism.[4]
Before becoming an actress, Fricker was assistant to the art editor of the Irish Times, with hopes to become a reporter. At age 19, she became an actress "by chance",[4] her feature film career began with a small uncredited part in the 1964 film Of Human Bondage, based on the 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. She also appeared in Tolka Row, Ireland's first soap opera.
== Career ==
One of Fricker's first TV roles was staff nurse Maloney in Coronation Street, debuting on 10 January 1977. Brenda's character attended on the birth of Tracy Barlow on 24 January 1977's episode. Fricker came to wider public attention in the United Kingdom in another nursing role, as Megan Roach in the BBC Onetelevision drama series Casualty. Fricker bowed out as Megan in December 1990, after playing the character in 65 episodes, because she believed her character had "started off with a wonderful sense of humour, [but] lost it all and all she ever seemed to do was push a trolley around and offer tea and sympathy".[4] In February 1998 she appeared in two episodes, with Megan attending the wedding of her former colleagues Charlie Fairhead and Barbara 'Baz' Samuels. In 2007, she returned for a single episode for Red Nose Day. The episode was written by Richard Curtis.[5] Fricker's final appearance as Megan was in August 2010, when the character took a lethal cocktail of drugs to end her life.
Fricker found international acclaim after she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1990 for her performance as Christy Brown's mother in My Left Foot (1989). In her acceptance speech, Brenda thanked Christy Brown "just for being alive" and also dedicated the Oscar to Mrs. Brown, saying "Anybody who gives birth twenty-two times deserves one of these". For her performance Brenda was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award and she won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress as well. She rejoined My Left Foot's writer/director Jim Sheridan to make the 1990 film The Field, starring alongside Richard Harris as Maggie McCabe (wife of Harris' "Bull" McCabe). She continued her television work during this period, starring in the Australian-produced short series Brides of Christ (1991). She then co-starred in the 1992 TV miniseries Seekers alongside Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson.
Buoyed by her Oscar win, Fricker went on to appear in several high-profile Hollywood films, most notably 1992's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as the Central Park Pigeon Lady. In 1993, she portrayed May Mackenzie, the Weekly World News-obsessed Scottish mother of Mike Myers' Charlie Mackenzie, in So I Married an Axe Murderer, and then portrayed Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character's motherly caretaker Maggie in the 1994 family comedy Angels in the Outfield. One of her last Hollywood film roles came with A Time to Kill, as Ethel Twitty (loyal secretary to Matthew McConaughey's Jake Brigance), after which she has focused almost exclusively on film and television work in Canada and the British Isles. In 2003, she played Bernie Guerin, mother of Veronica Guerin (played by Cate Blanchett) in the film of the same name. She then played nurse Eileen in the film Inside I'm Dancing. In 2007, she starred in How About You the film based on a short story about people living in a residential nursing home written by Maeve Binchy, playing Heather Nightangle. Other important roles were Omagh in 2004 as police Ombudsman Nuala O' Loan, as Graiine McFadden in the TV docudrama No Tears about the women treated with the blood product Anti D in the seventies who had been contaminated with Hepatitis C, and as Aunt Maeve in Durango in 1999, based on the novel by John B Keane.
Fricker has appeared in Closing the Ring, Richard Attenborough's post-Second World War drama, also starring Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer and Mischa Barton. in 2012 a high-profile supporting role in Albert Nobbs earned Fricker an Irish Film Award nomination, and along with Olympia Dukakis she became half of the first pair of Oscar-winning actors to play a same-sex couple in Cloudburst, a cultural milestone for the LGBT community that won awards worldwide
== Personal life ==
Fricker currently lives in the Liberties in Dublin. She was previously married to director Barry Davies. She says that her loves include her pet dogs, drinking Guinness, reading poetry and playing snooker. (She once stated that she had taken on the whole crew of My Left Foot. "I played pool against 17 of them, and beat them all," Brenda said).[4]
== Quotes ==
* "If you're doing a scene and you think you're doing it wrong, just swear in the middle of it and then the director can't use it. It's an arrogant way of doing it, but unfortunately it's the only way of self-protection. You have to be a bit anarchic sometimes." [citation needed]
* "When you are lying drunk at the airport, you're Irish. When you win an Oscar, you're British." [citation needed]
* (on her character in Casualty) "Megan was the mother we all want, full of love and understanding. I'm none of that – I'm not a mother and never will be and I wasn't even a very good wife; I'm not even a good nurse to my father, now he's old and frail. I'm much more rebellious than Megan. I couldn't do her job ever. Just go down to the hospital and watch what they do for an eighth of the salary I earned pretending to be a nurse. It makes you blush. You break your heart with people being kicked in the teeth by life. I couldn't handle it. I'd be reduced to tears." [4]
* "Of all the films I’ve made, only three do I remember where I felt I’d moved forward as an actress: Cloudburst, My Left Foot and The Field." [6]
== Filmography ==
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1964 	Of Human Bondage 	 	Uncredited
1969 	Sinful Davey 	 	Uncredited
1975 	Upstairs, Downstairs 	 	Uncredited (extra)
1978–79 	The Quatermass Conclusion 	Alison Thorpe 	Television series
1979 	The Music Machine 	Mrs. Pearson 	
1980 	Bloody Kids 	Nurse 	
1982 	The Ballroom of Romance 	Bridie 	
1985 	The Woman Who Married Clark Gable 	Mary 	
1986–90, 1998, 2007, 2010	Casualty 	Megan Roach 	Television series
1989 	My Left Foot 	Mrs. Brown 	
* Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
* Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
* Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
* Montreal World Film Festival Jurisdiction Award
* Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
* Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
* Nominated — New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990 	The Field 	Maggie McCabe 	
1991 	Brides of Christ 	Sister Agnes 	
1992 	The Sound and the Silence 	Eliza 	Television series
1992 	Utz 	Marta 	
1992 	Seekers 	Stella Hazard 	Television series
1992 	Home Alone 2: Lost in New York 	Central Park Pigeon Woman 	
1993 	So I Married an Axe Murderer 	May Mackenzie 	
1993 	Deadly Advice 	Iris Greenwood 	
1994 	A Man of No Importance 	Lily Byrne 	
1994 	Angels in the Outfield 	Maggie Nelson 	
1995 	Journey 	Lottie 	Television film
1996 	Moll Flanders 	Mrs. Mazzawatti 	
1996 	A Time to Kill 	Ethel Twitty 	Nominated — Stinkers Bad Movie Award for Worst Supporting Actress
1996 	Swann 	Rose Hindmarch 	Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
1997 	Masterminds 	Principal Claire Maloney 	
1998 	Painted Angels 	Annie Ryan 	
1998 	Resurrection Man 	Dorcas Kelly 	
1998 	Pete's Meteor 	Lily 	
1999 	Resurrection 	Clare's mother 	Television remake of 1980 original
1999 	Durango 	Aunt Maeve 	
2000 	Cupid & Cate 	Willie Hendley 	
2001 	The War Bride 	Betty 	Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
2002 	The Intended 	Mrs. Jones 	
2003 	Conspiracy of Silence 	Annie McLaughlin 	
2003 	Veronica Guerin 	Bernadette "Bernie" Guerin 	Nominated — Irish Film & Television Award for Best Supporting Actress - Film
2003 	Watermelon 	Teresa Ryan 	
2004 	Trauma 	Petra 	
2004 	Omagh 	Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan	Television film
2004 	Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss	Madame Alex 	Television film
2004 	Inside I'm Dancing 	Eileen 	Nominated — Irish Film & Television Award for Best Actress - Film
2004 	Razor Fish 	Molly 	
2005 	Milk 	Nan 	
2005 	Tara Road 	Mona 	
2007 	How About You 	 	
2007 	Closing the Ring 	Grandma Reilly 	
2008 	Stone of Destiny 	Mrs. McQuarry 	
2008 	Beautiful People 	Narg 	Episode: "How I Got My Beads"
2010 	Locked In 	Joan 	
2011 	Cloudburst 	Dot 	
2011 	Albert Nobbs 	Polly 	Nominated — Irish Film & Television Award for Best Supporting Actress - Film
2013 	A Long Way from Home 	Brenda 	
2013 	Forgive Me (TV series) 	Mrs. Smith 	
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