(Photo: Getty Images)
Happy birthday Dame Joan Plowright! This wonderful actress, now retired, turns 93 Friday (October 28), so we're taking the opportunity to make her our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 reasons we really appreciate her, including a look back at some of her most famous stage and screen roles.
1. She's one of only four actresses to win two Golden Globes in the same year. 
In 1993, Plowright won the Best Supporting Actress – Television award for her performance in Stalin and the Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture award for Enchanted April. In the latter – a lovely Sunday afternoon movie – she plays a snooty English writer who softens when she makes friends during an Italian vacation.

2. She was one half of a great acting "power couple."
Plowright and Sir Laurence Olivier were married from 1961 until his death in 1989. Because Olivier was made a Life Peer by Queen Elizabeth II in 1970, becoming Baron Olivier of Brighton, Plowright is entitled to style herself very grandly as "The Right Honourable The Dowager Lady Olivier."
3. She's old pals with some other great Dames.
Namely, fellow thesps Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, and Dame Eileen Atkins. You can watch them reminiscing about their illustrious careers in Tea with the Dames, a really charming 2018 documentary film. We love the clip below, in which Plowright recalls being told by her American agent that she should try landing a "nice cameo [role] that Judi Dench hasn't got her paws on."

4. And she's acted with them, too.
If you'd like to see Plowright sharing the screen with Dench and Smith, check out Tea with Mussolini, a 1999 period drama movie that also stars Cher and Lily Tomlin. It's a warm, funny and nostalgic film packed with strong female characters (as that cast list very much suggests). 

5. She was an incredibly prolific stage actress. 
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Plowright racked up dozens of stage roles in everything from Chekhov's The Seagull to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. She worked mainly on the London stage, but won a Tony Award in 1961 for her performance in A Taste of Honey, an influential play exploring class, race, and sexuality issues in postwar Britain.
6. She's modest and recognizes how fortunate she is.
During a 2010 interview with The Actor's Work, Plowright spoke about balancing her acting career with bringing up three children. "As a member of the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, I could play in repertoire, which means I would be on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday matinee and not for the rest of the week," she recalled. "So I could have some time at home with my children. I was also in a position to be able to afford to have help in the house and a nanny, and without that I couldn't have done it. So I was enormously lucky."
7. She was lovely in 101 Dalmatians.
Plowright plays Nanny in Disney's 1996 live-action movie starring Glenn Close. She gets to share some really sweet scenes with Joely Richardson... and of course, a few four-legged friends.

8. She also starred in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.
Released in 2004, this is another gently uplifting film movie that's perfect to watch on a lazy Sunday. Plowright plays the title character, an elegant but lonely English widow who moves into a London hotel and strikes up a friendship with a charismatic young writer. He's played by Rupert Friend, who went on to star in Homeland and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

9. She is sanguine about losing her sight.
Plowright confirmed in 2014 that she has now retired from acting due to macular degeneration. Four years later, she explained in a BBC Radio 4 interview that she decided to announce her retirement officially "because I couldn’t pretend anymore." 
"Once I knew there was no sight in one eye and the other one was getting more intensive with the glaucoma, then you have to make the decision and realize that life is going to go in a different way and make a preparation for it," she said.  "When I say make a preparation, within yourself, an acceptance and the decision to have a good life anyway in spite of it and find out what you can do and enjoy and go after that."
10. She is pretty much game for anything.
You might not expect Plowright to pop up in a movie about ballroom dancing, but she did just that, starring opposite Vanessa Williams in 1998's Dance for Me. She even got to have her own Dancing with the Stars moment on the dance floor, which you can check out below.

Do you have a favorite Dame Joan Plowright role?