Emma Thompson’s Mother Phyllida Law Dead at 94: Actress ‘Died Supremely Peacefully at Home’

Emma Thompson’s mom Phyllida Law has died. She was 94.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce that Phyllida Law died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family, on Monday 27th July,” Law’s manager Jacky Leggo said in a statement to BBC News on Tuesday, August 18. “We had worked together for over fifty years and she was a beautiful person inside and out.”

Law was the mother of daughters Emma, 67, and Sophie Thompson, whom she shared with late husband Eric Thompson. (Law and Eric tied the knot in 1957 and the couple were together until his death in 1982 at age 53.)

Emma previously shared that she and her mom formed a strong bond after the death of her father. (Emma was 21 at the time of her father’s death.)

“Now I think if my father was still alive, it would be very different,” the Love Actually actress told the Hollywood Foreign Press in May 2021. “I mean, we know mum so much better because we spent so much time together, we started going on holidays and traveling together, and we all live on the same street, within three doors of each other.”

The Oscar winner 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. My mum always worked, I always worked when I was married, and my sister works. So that’s created quite a strong kind of triumvirate. It’s a little alarming, actually.”

Both Emma and Sophie, 64, followed in their mother’s footsteps, who was a formidable actress in the 1960s. She appeared in multiple TV series, including Play School, A Picture of Katherine Mansfield, That’s Love, Kingdom and more. Law made her film debut in 1968’s Otley.

Law shared the screens with her daughters multiple times. She and Emma appeared in 1992’s Peter’s Friends, 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing and 1997’s The Winter’s Guest. Emma and Law also worked together on 2005’s Nanny McPhee. Emma wrote and starred in the project while Law lent her voice to the character Mrs. Partridge.

Meanwhile, Law and Sophie played mother and daughter in 1996’s Emma, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow.

Law previously gushed about working with her daughters over the years.

“They are both my colleagues in a way,” Law said of her daughters in a 2017 interview with The Telegraph. “They didn’t follow in our footsteps, they rushed past us, trampling on us.”