The Forsyte Saga star Margaret Tyzack dies aged 79 She had been ill for a short time

The Forsyte Saga star Margaret Tyzack dies aged 79 She had been ill for a short time

Margaret Tyzack, who starred in the landmark television drama The Forsyte Saga and won awards for theatre performances in the West End and on Broadway, has died, her family revealed today.

The actress, 79, who recently appeared on EastEnders as Lydia Simmonds, passed away peacefully at home on Saturday with her family at her side.

She had been ill for a short time  and her family said in a statement released to MailOnline that she faced her illness with ‘the strength, courage, dignity and even humour with which she lived her life’.

Her role in EastEnders had to be recast after she asked to withdraw because of ill health.

Known to her friends in the film, television and theatre worlds affectionately as Maggie, Tyzack was as well known for the support and inspiration she gave to young actors as she was for her award-winning roles. 

She was appointed OBE in 1970, and was made CBE in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to drama.

In movies she worked for the likes of Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange to, more recently, with Woody Allen on his film Match Point.

She made her first major impression as Winifred, Soames’s sister, in the long-running and acclaimed BBC adaptation of John Galsworthy’s riveting drama about Victorian era respectability The Forsyte Saga.

Although the long-running series made her a household name, Tyzack did not want to limit her career to just working in television. 

However, she did also appear in I, Claudius and The First Churchills.

But it was on the stage that she found her greatest rewards.

Tyzack won an Olivier award for her Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and collected a  Broadway Tony prize  when she appeared opposite Maggie Smith in the play Lettice And Lovage, in a role she created in the West End.

A couple of years ago  she starred in the Donmar Theatre’s revival of Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden for which she won best actress trophies from the Critics’ Circle and the Society of London Theatre’s Laurence Olivier awards.

She was a stalwart of both major theatre organisations the National and the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

Her last stage appearance was as Helen Mirren’s outspoken maid in Phedra at the National Theatre.

She was an Essex girl who later grew up in West Ham and made it all the way to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.