Helen McCrory, who died of cancer on Friday aged 52, has enjoyed success in film, television and stage throughout a multi-year career. She starred in the Channel 4 / Masterpiece Theater miniseries, Anna Karenina, and portrayed Narcissa Malfoy in three Harry Potter films and most recently as Aunt Polly on Netflix and the BBC’s Peaky Blinders gangster series.
The London-born actress, whose first film was in the 1993 British television comedy Full Stretch via a limousine service (which lasted one season), recently appeared on the BBC / HBO series His Dark Materials, in which she appeared on Lord Asriels Dæmon voiced Stelmaria and the political drama Roadkill alongside Hugh Laurie. She also starred as the formidable QC Sonia Woodley on ITV / AMC’s limited series Quiz last year.
Other notable appearances include Streetlife 1995, for which she received a BAFTA Cymru Award, and John Hannah in the 1997 film The James Gang. She also appeared in Hugo as MP Clair Dowar in the James Bond picture Skyfall 2012 and The Queen 2016, where she played Cherie Blair, wife of Michael Sheen’s Tony Blair.
After starting her career in the West End (where she played Uncle Vanya’s Lady Macbeth, Medea and Yelena), McCrory won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Streetlife in 1995 and a 2001 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for North Square. Her work in Penny Dreadful earned her a Critics Choice Television Awards nomination.
Click the photo above to start a gallery of her filmography.
CONNECTED: Helen McCrory, remembered by the Peaky Blinders and Harry Potter families, BAFTA and others