HELEN McCRORY
Ifeel as though my life is bathed in golden sunlight,” said the stage and screen actor Helen McCrory. “And the really wonderful thing is that I know it.” Sadly, that life came to a premature end in April, when McCrory lost her private battle with cancer at the age of 52. But what a legacy she leaves behind – as a performer and as a person.
Born in London to a Welsh mother and Scottish father, McCrory discovered her love of acting while attending Queenswood School in Hatfield, where she was tutored by drama teacher Thane Bettany – Paul’s father. She studied at Drama Centre London and made her stage debut as Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance Of Being Earnest (1990). Her reputation quickly grew as she aced a series of choice roles: Lydia Bennet in Pride And Prejudice (1991); Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1995); and teaming with Sam Mendes for the double whammy of Yelena in Uncle Vanya and Olivia in Twelfth Night (2002). Mendes described her as a “forcefield of energy”.
McCrory continued to wow on stage, and was nominated for an Olivier Award for her Rosalind in As You Like It (2006). But she was every bit as capable a screen actress, with her fearsome matriarch Aunt Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders (2013-19) seared into the public consciousness. Filming began on Season 6 of the long-running crime show in March, though it is not clear if McCrory will be in it. Other TV roles included Doctor Who (2010), Penny Dreadful (2014-15), the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (2019-20), and as defending counsel in ITV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? coughing-scandal series Quiz (2020).
When Mendes needed an actor who could make Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes “cower” in Skyfall (2012), he turned to McCrory to play Home Secretary Claire Dowar. She made for a memorable Cherie Blair, twice, in The Queen (2006) and TV movie The Special Relationship (2010), and lit up – or rather, deliciously darkened – the last three Harry Potter movies (2009-2011) playing Narcissa Malfoy, mother of Draco. She also worked with cinematic auteurs Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson in Hugo (2011) and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), respectively. Her final big-screen outing saw her lending her vocal talents to Loving Vincent (2017), a story revolving around artist van Gogh and rendered in painterly animation.
As big a character off the screen as on it, McCrory was renowned for her selfless, generous and ferociously fun nature. She was appointed an OBE in 2017 and, in the last year, she and her husband Damian Lewis raised £1m for the Feed NHS initiative. Marking her passing on Twitter, Lewis wrote, “[She] dies as she lived. Fearlessly. God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now Little One, into the air, and thank you.”
She is survived by Lewis and their two children, Manon and Gulliver. JG