Biography - Brenda Fricker

Who is Brenda Fricker?

Brenda Fricker is a retired actress and an Irish national. Over her career span of six decades, she is well known for appearing in My Left Foot, Home Alone 2, and Veronica Gueri.

Brenda Fricker – Age, Parents, Siblings

Brenda Fricker was born in Dublin, Ireland on 17 February 1945. Her mother Bina Fricker, a teacher at Stratford College, and father Desmond Frederick Fricker, who served in the Department of Agriculture and was a journalist for The Irish Times, raised her alongside her sister Nora Ann Grania Fricker. 

Other details of her early life are not shared with the public.

Education, Ethnicity

Fricker’s educational history is also not shared with the public. Her ethnicity is Irish.

In her teens, she survived a car accident that left her out of commission for nearly two years. She also battled tuberculosis and had to remove one of her kidneys.

Brenda Fricker – Boyfriend, Husband, Children, Divorce

Brenda Fricker was married to director Barry Davies in 1979. She divorced her husband in 1988 due to his alcoholism. They did not have any children together but suffered six miscarriages. The pair reconciled in 1990 and remained together until his death just a year later in 1991.

Since then she has remained unmarried and currently lives in The Liberties, Dublin. Her other romantic relationships are also not publicized.

Brenda Fricker – Career

Early Days

Before starting her career as an actress, Fricker worked as an assistant to the art editor of the Irish Times. Her hopes of becoming a reporter fizzled and she became an actress at the age of 19 “by chance”.

Brenda Fricker’s early roles were in the TV series Coronation Street (1977), The Quatermass Conclusion (1978-1979), Cockles (1984), Casualty (1986-1990, 1998, 207, 2010), and minor roles in the films The Music Machine (1979), 1980 (1980), The Ballroom of Romance (1982).

Finally, her role as Bridget Fagan Brown in the 1989 film My Left Foot, in which she starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, was a major success. This breakthrough role earned her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Golden Globe Nominations.

Films, TV Series

Over the years Brenda Fricker has appeared in the films The Field (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), A Time to Kill (1996), Cupid & Cate (2000), Veronica Guerin (2003), Inside I'm Dancing (2004), Albert Nobbs (2011), to name a few. Her TV credits include the TV series Seekers (1992), TV films Omagh (2004), and Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss (2004).

After appearing in more than 30 films and TV roles, she retired from acting in 2014.

Co-stars

On the set of Albert Nobbs, Brenda Fricker has worked with Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brendan Gleeson, and Maria Doyle Kennedy.

Brenda Fricker – Awards, Nominations

Over the career spanning six decades, Fricker has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Montreal World Film Festival Jurisdiction Award, all in the year 1989.

She has also been nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (1989), the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress (1989), the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (1989), Genie Award (1996, 2001), Irish Film & Television Academy Award (2003, 2004, 2011).

Brenda Fricker – Net Worth, Salary

The net worth and salary of Brenda Fricker are not known.

Brenda Fricker – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

On Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, Fricker is absent. She went viral in 2020 after a discussion about her resemblance with Pierce Morgan in her Home Alone 2 appearance.