Aged 52. Played Cherie Blair in The Queen and Narcissus Malfoy in Harry Potter. Wife of Damian Lewis.
Oh how sad. Such a wonderful stage and screen artist. Way too young. RIP dear Lady
by Anonymous | reply 1 | April 16, 2021 5:59 PM |
Apologies. I've just noticed a DEAD TO ME for this actor but it was under her Harry Potter persona, so didn't appear when I created this thread.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | April 16, 2021 6:35 PM |
For those interested, a story about her meeting Lauren Bacall on Broadway from her Desert Island Discs program.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | April 16, 2021 6:45 PM |
First Paul Ritter and now this, I really liked her. RIP Helen.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | April 16, 2021 8:46 PM |
I saw her at the National Theatre in Rattigan's T'he Deep Blue Sea'. She was spell-binding. One of the few actresses that could keep an audience of 1,200 enthralled as she simply boiled an egg with her back to the audience.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | April 16, 2021 8:51 PM |
So sad....I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | April 16, 2021 8:58 PM |
Very sad. I loved her!
by Anonymous | reply 7 | April 16, 2021 9:30 PM |
Helen also played the crazy witch in 'Penny Dreadful'.
What type of cancer did she have?
by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 16, 2021 9:38 PM |
Does Damian Lewis need consoling? I'm available
by Anonymous | reply 9 | April 17, 2021 12:26 AM |
OP- Damian Lewis is a CONNOIJSSEUR of COCK.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | April 17, 2021 12:50 AM |
Her Aunt Polly in Peaky Blinders was brilliant.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | April 17, 2021 1:23 AM |
I had friends that worked with her and said she was lovely. Feel sad for her kids.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | April 17, 2021 1:48 AM |
What fucking British actor DIDN'T have a part in a Harry Potter movie?
by Anonymous | reply 13 | April 17, 2021 1:50 AM |
R13- British actors/actresses lined up to appear in that Harry Potter DRIVEL.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | April 17, 2021 2:39 AM |
You'd thought they'd have run out.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | April 17, 2021 5:06 AM |
Can’t believe it took until R11 for someone to mention Aunt Polly. You are a fookin’ disappointment OP.
This was so sudden. An aggressive cancer, I’m told? (not sure what sort). Far too young for a vigourous working woman to die, and for an artist with much more to give.
At least our Gypsy Queen Poll will be reunited with her love Aberama, now. “I have dealt death: now death has dealt with me.”
by Anonymous | reply 16 | April 17, 2021 11:36 PM |
Aw, loved her
by Anonymous | reply 17 | April 17, 2021 11:37 PM |
Wonder how they’ll explain Poll’s absence in the final season of Peaky’s, then?
They’d better not have her get gunned down by a random assassin in a filler episode. She was the lynchpin character of the entire story, and the breakout star of the show. She’s the type of character who needs to have a strong ending that shows how powerful and self-possessed she was, that she didn’t go down without a fight.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 17, 2021 11:46 PM |
[quote] t22felton—So sad to say farewell so suddenly - I never took the chance to tell her , but she helped shape me as a person so much - on & off screen - She was always relentlessly herself- razor sharp wit - silver tongued - kind & warm hearted - she suffered no fools yet had time for everyone - thank you for lighting the way forward & holding my hand when I needed it xx
Poor Tom Felton, it’s never easy to lose a (screen) parent.
Hopefully he can find consolation from Daddy Jason.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | April 18, 2021 9:46 AM |
Helen sounds an incredible woman, as well as a first-class actress. She swore those close to her to secrecy about the cancer, and told very few, so that she could commit fully to her professional and charitable engagements up until the end,
There’s a good chance the likes of Tom, Jason, the secondary actors on PEAKY BLINDERS and her other final projects never even knew she was ill.
My heart goes out to her grieving children and her husband.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | April 18, 2021 10:04 AM |
She seemed to have worked hard to prepare her husband and children for life after her death. She said she wanted "Daddy to have lots of girlfriends" but to hold off snogging anyone at the funeral service.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | April 18, 2021 1:19 PM |
Her take on Cherie Blair was the only good thing about the otherwise dreadful The Queen. That scene where she and Michael Sheen moved away from the queen backwards (because they were told you can't turn your back on her) was a hoot!
by Anonymous | reply 22 | April 18, 2021 1:26 PM |
She managed to pull this outfit off. Not so Poor Damian.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | April 18, 2021 2:55 PM |
R23 she was quite old-school punk rock in spirit, makes sense she’d look great in that.
It’s so weird talking about her in the past tense. She doesn’t seem like someone who ought to be dead, if that makes sense.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | April 18, 2021 3:46 PM |
Wonder if Miss Cillian knew? Surely, she had to.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | April 19, 2021 12:13 PM |
She was no Helen Flanagan.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | April 19, 2021 12:32 PM |
[quote] she was quite old-school punk rock in spirit,
What does that even mean?
Anyway, don’t smoke, kids. A 52 year old mother and friend does not need to be dead
by Anonymous | reply 28 | April 19, 2021 12:36 PM |
I always liked her but also found her looking much older than her age.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | April 19, 2021 12:41 PM |
[quote]Helen also played the crazy witch in 'Penny Dreadful'.
Yes, she was scary on 'Penny Dreadful'. I wish her character had been kept on for another season.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | April 19, 2021 12:56 PM |
R28 We don’t know what type of cancer she had. It might not have had anything to do with smoking. 🙄
by Anonymous | reply 31 | April 19, 2021 12:58 PM |
She was also in 'MotherFatherSon' (2019) with Richard Gere.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | April 19, 2021 1:11 PM |
[Quote] We don’t know what type of cancer she had. It might not have had anything to do with smoking. 🙄
While that's true... she made a point of noting what you like is often bad for you when she named on of her chosen tracks on the radio show Desert Island Discs. The track? "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" She also mentioned family singalongs while smoking "twenty fags." And then there's her whippet thin body well into middle age... Either way, she could have been hit by a bus and died at 49.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | April 19, 2021 1:19 PM |
Helen McCrory glamourised smoking, and only a fool would argue against her smoking being as much a reason why this too young woman is dead as John Candy’s weight was for him.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | April 19, 2021 1:31 PM |
One doesn't need to argue. It's redundant. There's no new information re the dangers of smoking, overeating etc.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | April 19, 2021 1:38 PM |
[quote] She seemed to have worked hard to prepare her husband and children for life after her death. She said she wanted "Daddy to have lots of girlfriends" but to hold off snogging anyone at the funeral service.
I din't know her work but based on his tribute in one of the UK papers she sounds like she was a very wonderful person.
It also sounds like, even during her sickness, she was raising money for COVID help for actors, etc.
She had good taste in men.
Cheers to her.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | April 19, 2021 1:40 PM |
For those of you who'd like to hear her Desert Island Discs.....
by Anonymous | reply 37 | April 19, 2021 1:46 PM |
The cancer seemed so quick and aggressive and treatment-resistant, that there’s a good chance it was ovarian. It also could have been a skin cancer that metastised very quickly and out of nowhere. Not ruling out lung cancer, just saying it might not be.
Anyway, as R35 says, it hardly matters now, unless there was a chance that earlier checks and vigilance could have helped her survival chances (and ergo, could help people still living to know).
by Anonymous | reply 38 | April 19, 2021 2:26 PM |
About fifteen years ago I saw her onstage in As You Like It in the West End. The production as a whole wasn’t terrific - Jaques and Touchstone were played by two British comedians, who I knew nothing of, and both seemed to spent the whole play painstakingly trying to suss out dick and pussy jokes. It was set in a vaguely post-war “Chocolat-esque” France, which meant a lot of accordion music, bicycles being pushed across stage and company members pretending to be beret-wearing existentialists miming arguments in the background, and the rustic characters were all directed to speak in cringey Pepe LePew accents. But Helen McCrory’s Rosalind was breathtaking - passionate, hilarious, fierce, vulnerable, completely real and wildly sexy. It’s to this day, the best performance of a Shakespeare heroine that I have ever seen. Furthermore, she was playing opposite Dominic West and Sienna Miller, both of whom where at the golden peak of their beauty - and all I wanted to do was watch her. She was a real star.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | April 19, 2021 2:37 PM |
[quote] It was set in a vaguely post-war “Chocolat-esque” France, which meant a lot of accordion music, bicycles being pushed across stage and company members pretending to be beret-wearing existentialists miming arguments in the background, and the rustic characters were all directed to speak in cringey Pepe LePew accents.
The Branagh-directed Romeo And Juliet set in a La Dolce Vita Italy was similarly on those nose, but it featured a fab Derek Jacobi as an elder Mercutio
by Anonymous | reply 40 | April 19, 2021 6:09 PM |
R8 One of those terminal cancers Rose.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | April 19, 2021 6:22 PM |
[quote][R8] One of those terminal cancers Rose.
STFU you bloody moron. Don't be a snarky asshole. The Golden Girl 'jokes' are beyond tiresome. Don't assume every gay man enjoys the Golden Girls, I don't. I cannot stand that show. After watching something else on TVLand, if I hear the opening music, I run for my TV remote!
Anyway, re Helen McCrory, anyone who is fan of any celebrity, usually wants to know exactly what they died from. It's human nature to ask such a question. It's never a stupid question.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | April 20, 2021 12:04 AM |
She made being in her 50s and careworn look really sexy. That’s hard to do.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | April 20, 2021 12:08 PM |
Well, she was never an ingenue.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | April 20, 2021 1:28 PM |
R40 it really isn’t Branagh if it isn’t on-the-nose. The man is subtle as a brick.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | April 21, 2021 12:33 PM |
R42 Calm down Rose. I didn't tell that GG joke for you..
by Anonymous | reply 46 | April 22, 2021 8:42 PM |
R31, you're an IDIOT. And probably a smoking one.
"Tobacco use causes many types of cancer, including cancer of the lung, larynx (voice box), mouth, esophagus, throat, bladder, kidney, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon and rectum, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia. People who use smokeless tobacco (snuff or chewing tobacco) have increased risks of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and pancreas."
by Anonymous | reply 47 | April 22, 2021 8:49 PM |
Helen WHO?
by Anonymous | reply 48 | April 22, 2021 8:52 PM |
Her Desert Island Discs was heartbreaking but really showed what good fun she was. She had to have known she was dying, right?
by Anonymous | reply 49 | April 22, 2021 8:55 PM |
She looks like the exorcist
by Anonymous | reply 50 | April 22, 2021 9:44 PM |
Very sad. She and her hubby were well-matched.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | April 22, 2021 9:45 PM |
R5
I also saw her in the National's production -- on Youtube during the pandemic. She was amazing.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | April 22, 2021 9:47 PM |
Great actress, and wonderful person. Helen McCrory will be missed by many.
Loved her being deliciously evil in Dead Gorgeous with co-star Fay Ripley.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | June 10, 2021 11:34 AM |
Not to bang on about this, but for a very heavy smoker she had quite good teeth, still.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | June 10, 2021 6:05 PM |
Look who is in the background of this photo. It's Helen!
This was taken a few years ago, at some London charity event.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | June 10, 2021 8:38 PM |
R54
Contrary to popular belief on DL and elsewhere dental care and hygiene in UK has everything one can find in USA. OTC products are available for whitening and stain removal of teeth, then there are always trips to the dentist.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | June 10, 2021 11:23 PM |
I don't think that's McCrory in the background. It looks like an Iranian woman.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | June 10, 2021 11:25 PM |
Oh no! I’m streaming Peaky Blinders right now.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | June 10, 2021 11:28 PM |
[Quote] I’m streaming Peaky Blinders right now.
Don't worry, you had nothing to do with it. She's dead months.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | June 10, 2021 11:30 PM |
She was UGLY!
by Anonymous | reply 60 | June 10, 2021 11:34 PM |
But I didn’t know! Now it will be like watching a ghost.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | June 10, 2021 11:36 PM |
Lewis has an off centre chin, like Tyler Posey.
by Anonymous | reply 64 | June 11, 2021 12:09 AM |
[quote]I don't think that's McCrory in the background. It looks like an Iranian woman.
That's definitely Helen, she was listed as being at the event. The two men in the photo are British South Asians, not Iranians. The man on the right is actor Riz Ahmed.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | June 11, 2021 12:25 AM |
R60 I’m decomposing as we speak, and still I’m better-looking than you, darl!
by Anonymous | reply 66 | June 11, 2021 10:11 AM |