Actress Brenda Fricker, best known for playing the iconic Pigeon Lady in “Home Alone 2,” died Thursday.
She was 81 years old.
A rep for the Oscar winner confirmed the news to Page Six on Friday, saying: “It is with great sadness that we share the news that beloved actress Brenda Fricker passed away peacefully last night in Dublin at the age of 81 after a short period of ill health.”
“We will never see her like again, and the world is a smaller place without her. I had the pleasure of knowing her, loving her, and working with her.”
“She will always have a place in my heart and in the hearts of many film and television fans around the world.”
(Born in February 1945 in Dublin, Fricker worked as an assistant to the arts editor of The Irish Times before pursuing acting.
Her first role was in 1964’s “Of Human Bondage.”
She appeared in two soap operas and several theater companies, and later became famous for her role as Megan Roach in Casualty, a role she played for the next four years and reprized the role repeatedly.
Fricker’s claim to fame was 1989’s “My Left Foot,” for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
“I can’t believe that,” she gushed in her 1990 acceptance speech. “I will take (this trophy) back to Ireland with pride.”
She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role as Bridget Fagan Brown.
In 1992, she was cast as the Central Park Pigeon Woman in Home Alone 2, where she had a popular scene with the film’s star, Macaulay Culkin.
Fricker played a homeless woman who saves her character, Kevin McAllister, from a Wet Bandit robbery. Later, I had a heartfelt conversation with him at Carnegie Hall about love and loss.
She described it as a “really nice” and “light-hearted” experience in a 2022 “Hard Shoulders” interview.
“I was going to get covered in pigeon butts, put on my costume, and go back to the hotel,” Fricker recalled. “If you want to empty the elevator quickly, wear pigeon clothes.
“It was a luxury for me. I got paid a lot of money for this job,” she added, noting that she still receives balance checks ranging from 46 cents to $10.
As of 2020, Fricker and Culkin have not spoken out. She told listeners on RTE Radio 1:
“I haven’t heard from him, no,” explained the “Angel in the Outfield” star, who last appeared in “Swallows” in 2024. “I’m worried about him, but he hasn’t contacted me.”
Culkin has not yet commented on Fricker’s death.
