Helen McCrory, the British actor behind beloved roles on Peaky Blinders and in the Harry Potter franchise, has died. She passed away “after an heroic battle with cancer” and “surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family,” McCrory’s husband, fellow actor Damian Lewis, announced on Friday. She was 52.
“I’m heartbroken to announce that after an heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family,” Lewis wrote on Twitter. “She died as she lived. Fearlessly. God we love her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you.”
Born in London, McCrory had a decades-long career that spanned U.K. stage productions, successful television shows, and major films. She was perhaps best known for playing Narcissa Malfoy in the final three Harry Potter films, as well as Shelby family matriarch Polly Gray in all five seasons of Peaky Blinders ahead of its sixth and final installment. “I am broken-hearted to lose such a dear friend,” Cillian Murphy, who costarred alongside McCrory on the hit series, said in a statement. “Helen was a beautiful, caring, funny, compassionate human being. She was also a gifted actor—fearless and magnificent. She elevated and made humane every scene, every character she played. It was a privilege to have worked with this brilliant woman, to have shared so many laughs over the years. I will dearly miss my pal. My love and thoughts are with Damian and her family.”
Beyond Harry Potter and Peaky Blinders, McCrory also appeared in Penny Dreadful, The Queen, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, and Skyfall. Last year alone, she worked on HBO’s His Dark Materials, BBC’s Roadkill alongside Hugh Laurie, and the ITV series Quiz, which depicted the 2001 U.K. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire scandal. Helen Mirren, who costarred with McCrory in The Queen, shared a photo of the late performer on Instagram, writing, “A great actress and a great person. This is so very very sad.”
She appeared in several theatrical productions as well, from Macbeth to Medea. In 2006, she earned an Olivier Award nomination for her role as Rosalind in As You Like It. But it was a 2003 production of Five Gold Rings at the Almeida Theatre that proved to be most important. That’s where she and Lewis met while playing forbidden lovers. They married in 2007 and welcomed two children—a daughter named Manon, 14 and a son named Gulliver, 13. When Lewis took Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire in 2017, he listed “My marriage” as his greatest achievement and “My wife” as the greatest love of his life.
In a 2013 interview with British Vogue, the couple spoke about their relationship and McCrory spoke about her career outlook after becoming a mother. “It’s got to be a damn good offer to coax me away from them,” she said of their children. “Which is probably why the projects I’ve worked on since they were born have been such interesting ones.” Just weeks before her death, McCrory and Lewis appeared on Good Morning Britain to fundraise for the NHS staff during the pandemic. Their charitable efforts led to nearly £1million in donations.
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