Brenda Fricker, the Oscar-winning Irish actress beloved by generations of moviegoers as both the heartbroken mother in My Left Foot and the kindhearted Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has died at 81. Her agent, Phil Belfield, said Fricker died after a period of ill health. Fricker made history in 1990 as the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award, beating out fellow nominees Julia Roberts (Steel Magnolias), Angelica Huston (Enemies, A Love Story), Dianne Wiest (Parenthood) and Lena Olin (Enemies, A Love Story). She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Christy Brown’s mother in My Left Foot, opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, who also won an Oscar for the film. While that role cemented her place in film history, many younger fans came to know her as the lonely Central Park Pigeon Lady who befriends Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 2. Fricker’s decades-long career also included roles in A Time to Kill, So I Married an Axe Murderer, and the BBC medical drama Casualty. Paying tribute, Phil Belfield, her agent, said, “We will never see her like again,” adding that “the world is lesser for the lack of her.”
