{"id":520054,"date":"2026-03-12T23:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520054\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T23:37:08","slug":"the-crown-and-downton-abbey-star-jane-lapotaire-dead-at-81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/520054\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Crown&#8217; and &#8216;Downton Abbey&#8217; star Jane Lapotaire dead at 81"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe Crown\u201d and \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d star Jane Lapotaire has died. She was 81.<\/p>\n<p>The Tony Award-winning actress passed away on March 5, and a spokesperson for the Royal Shakespeare Company confirmed the sad news Thursday. No cause of death has been released.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are saddened to hear of the death of Jane Lapotaire,\u201d the statement began, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-sun.com\/entertainment\/16077326\/jane-lapotaire-dead-crown-downton-abbey-star\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">per the Sun<\/a>. \u201cA truly brilliant actress, her RSC credits include Piaf, winning her TONY &amp; Olivier awards, &amp; Gertrude opposite Kenneth Branagh in Adrian Noble\u2019s Hamlet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Crown\u201d and \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d star Jane Lapotaire (pictured here in New York City in April 2016) has died. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Tony Award-winning actress (seen here in 1981\u2019s \u201cThe Search for Alexander the Great\u201d) passed away on March 5. \u00a9PBS\/Courtesy Everett Collection \/ Everett Collection<\/p>\n<p>Born Jane Burgess in\u00a0Ipswich, England, in December 1944, Lapotaire was put up for adoption and lived with a foster mother for 12 years.<\/p>\n<p>However, the future actress\u2019 birth mother returned to Ipswich when Lapotaire was 13, and a custody battle followed. <\/p>\n<p>Although her foster mother was ultimately awarded custody, Lapotaire had to spend holidays with her birth mother.<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire\u2019s acting career, meanwhile, began on the stage when she landed the role of Ruby Birtle in \u201cWhen We Are Married\u201d at the Bristol Old Vic in 1965.<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire (pictured here in November 1970) was born Jane Burgess in\u00a0Ipswich, England, in December 1944 Hulton Archive<\/p>\n<p>The English actress (seen here in November 1983) began on the stage when she landed the role of Ruby Birtle in \u201cWhen We Are Married\u201d in 1965. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWant more celebrity and pop culture news?\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with Page Six Daily.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew then that I wanted to act,\u201d she said during an interview before her death, according to the Sun. \u201cI wanted it more than walking or breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She later became one of the founding members of the Young Vic Theatre around 1970, and went on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974.<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t until 1977 that Lapotaire was cast as Marie Curie in the BBC mini-series \u201cMarie Curie\u201d that her popularity skyrocketed.<\/p>\n<p>Following \u201cMarie Curie,\u201d Lapotaire starred as Edith Piaf in the original 1978 production of Pam Gems\u2019 \u201cPiaf.\u201d She stayed with the play when it moved to Broadway in 1980, and she won the Tony Award for best actress in a play that same year.<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire starred as Princess Irina Kuragin in Season 5 of \u201cDownton Abbey.\u201d Nick Briggs\/ITV<\/p>\n<p>The late actress also starred as Princess Alice of Battenberg in Season 3 of \u201cThe Crown.\u201d Netflix<\/p>\n<p>While Lapotaire was highly acclaimed for her work on the stage, she also had an extensive and impressive career in film and TV beyond \u201cMarie Curie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She starred as Queen Mary in \u201cLady Jane\u201d (1980), Princess Irina Kuragin in Season 5 of \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d and Princess Alice of Battenberg in Season 3 of \u201cThe Crown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire\u2019s career was interrupted in 2000 after she <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2016\/04\/05\/this-71-year-old-actress-defied-the-odds-after-a-brain-hemorrhage\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suffered a cerebral hemorrhage<\/a> and underwent surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire (pictured here in London in November 2019) had her career interrupted in 2000 after she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. James Shaw \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n<p>One of Lapotaire\u2019s final public appearances was when she was honored with a Commander of the Order of the British Empire at Windsor Castle in February 2026, as pictured here.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After a four-week recovery in the ICU, she wrote an award-winning memoir titled \u201cTime Out of Mind\u201d and published it in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lapotaire\u2019s last public appearances was at Windsor Castle last month when she was honored with a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.<\/p>\n<p>Lapotaire is survived by her son, Rowan Joffe, whom she shared with her ex-husband, Roland Joffe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Crown\u201d and \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d star Jane Lapotaire has died. She was 81. The Tony Award-winning actress passed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1508,236,7569,91,51071,88,206,234836,92],"class_list":["post-520054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actors","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-celebrity-news","tag-downton-abbey","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-the-crown","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}