Emma Thompson’s family shared tributes as her mother, esteemed actress Phyllida Law, died aged 94.
Phyllida’s death was confirmed by her manager, Jacky Leggo, who said she “died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family”.
Emma’s actress daughter Gaia Wise, 26, shared a tribute to her grandmother on her Instagram Story, writing, “Rest well my Queen,” alongside a red love heart emoji.
Phyllida, who was married to late Magic Roundabout creator Eric Thompson, regularly appeared opposite her daughters Emma and Sophie in films in the 1980s and 1990s.
These included Peter’s Friends (1992), which was directed by Emma’s then-husband, Kenneth Branagh, as well as Kenneth’s version of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), also starring Emma.
She starred alongside Emma in Alan Rickman’s directorial debut The Winter Guest in 1997, with the pair playing a mother and a daughter.
Phyllida and Sophie also played mother and daughter in Emma, the 1996 Jane Austen adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow.
Phyllida had a voice role in Emma’s 2005 fantasy film Nanny McPhee, which Emma wrote and starred in.
Born in Glasgow in 1932, she initially had aspirations to become a stage designer – but ended up studying acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Throughout her career, she appeared in television programmes including Play School, The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club, Midsomer Murders, Monarch Of The Glen, Rosemary & Thyme, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Foyle’s War, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks.
She also featured in films including Much Ado About Nothing, Anna Karenina, The Winter Guest, Saving Grace and Miss Potter.
On stage, Phyllida appeared alongside Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1971 and in Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973, which then transferred to the West End.
The actor received an OBE for services to drama and charitable causes in 2014.
Emma previously said she, her sister and their mother were incredibly “close-knit” as a result of her father’s death when she was younger.
“Our relationship is unusual, and the reason is that there’s three of us in the family left now, me, my sister, and my mother, because my father died when my sister was 18 and I was 21,” she said in 1997.
“Now I think if my father was still alive, it would be very different. I mean, we know mum so much better because we spent so much time together.”
She continued: “We’re far closer-knit because of that event in our lives – also we’re three actresses who always had to earn our own living. We’ve never been supported by anyone.”
