Tony- and Olivier Award-Winning Actress Margaret Tyzack Dies at 79

Tony- and Olivier Award-winning British actress Margaret Tyzack, best known for her roles in the PBS series The Forsyte Saga and I, Claudius, died on June 25 at her home in London. She was 79.

Born outside of London on September 9, 1931, Tyzack attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began her professional career in the early 1950s at a repertory company in central England. In 1962 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where her credits included Summerfolk, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar.

Tyzack first made a national name for herself playing Winifred in the popular 1967 BBC drama The Forsyte Saga, followed up by her role as Antonia in I, Claudius in 1976. In 1981, she won an Olivier Award for playing Martha in a London revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Tyzack made her Broadway debut as the Countess of Rossillion in Trevor Nunn's 1983 production of All’s Well That Ends Well, for which she earned a Best Featured Actress Tony nomination. In 1990, she won the Best Featured Actress Tony for Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage opposite Maggie Smith, who took home the Best Actress Tony.

Tyzack performed well into her 70s, winning her second Olivier Award in 2008 for playing the eccentric Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse. Most recently, she starred opposite Helen Mirren in 2009 production of Phedre at the National Theatre. Her screen credits include roles in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, and more recently in Woody Allen’s Match Point.

Tyzack is survived by her husband Alan Stephenson, a math professor, and their son Matthew.