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Brenda Fricker, Oscar-winning Irish actress and ‘Home Alone’ Pigeon Lady, dies at 81

By CNN

(CNN) — Brenda Fricker, the Oscar-winning Irish actress, has died at age 81, her agent confirmed Friday.

Fricker was the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award, which she scooped in 1990 for best supporting actress for her role in “My Left Foot.” In the biopic, directed by Jim Sheridan, she played Mrs Brown, the mother of the movie’s central character, Christy Brown, a man with cerebral palsy. Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Brown, also earned an Oscar for his portrayal.

The actress’ death on Thursday was announced by her agent, Phil Belfield. In a statement sent to CNN, he said: “It is with much sadness that I share the news that beloved actress Brenda Fricker passed away peacefully last night in Dublin, after a period of ill health, at the age of 81.”

Describing her as a “legend,” Belfield added: “We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her. I was honored to know, love and work with her and she will always have a place in my heart and in the heart of so many film and TV fans the world over.”

Fricker’s acting career included more than 30 roles in movies and TV, including her famous outing as the homeless “pigeon lady” who befriended Macauley Culkin in “Home Alone 2.”

Born and bred in Dublin, Fricker last year published a memoir entitled “She Died Young: A Life in Fragments.” According to the book’s publisher, Bloomsbury, it covered her early years in Ireland, but also the “difficulty of surviving sexual violence and living with mental illness.”

Last year, an ailing Fricker gave an interview to the Guardian from her bed at home in Dublin, during which she said: “I’m having a dreadful death … I’m just dying, every day in pain.”

She told the interviewer that writing the book had been “murder for me” as she discussed a difficult upbringing, which featured sexual abuse at the hands of an elocution teacher, and surviving two rapes.

“It was kind of ironic because I was talking about things I had paid a fortune to psychiatrists to make me forget,” she told the Guardian. “So it was very painful bringing them back. I thought they were a bit morbid. I think I’m a bit morbid. I’m Irish.”

Among her many movie roles, she played opposite Olympia Dukakis in the 2011 film “Cloudburst” and with Cate Blanchett in “Veronica Guerin” in 2003. Her last role was in “The Swallow” in 2024, which her agent said showed “the truth and majesty of Brenda as an actor and is a thing of beauty.”

In an interview with British newspaper The Times in 2024, Fricker played down her Oscar achievement. “I didn’t learn that much on My Left Foot,” she said. “I learnt a lot while at the BBC when we were doing plays. The standard of the stuff then was so much better.”

She told the interviewer that after spending six years on the BBC medical drama “Casualty,” she was offered work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, “which is exactly where I wanted to go.” But she was then cast in the Oscar-winning role that went on to define her career.

“You get passed over like that and typecast,” she said. “So there’s a lot that’s not great about an Oscar. And you don’t get any money. They could give you a few bob with it, at least.”

Upon hearing the news of Fricker’s death, Edward Walsh, the US ambassador to Ireland, tweeted: “Sad to hear of the passing of Brenda Fricker, a giant of Irish film and the first Irish actress ever to win an Academy Award for her unforgettable performance in My Left Foot. From Dublin to Hollywood, her work brought Ireland’s stories to the world and inspired generations on both sides of the Atlantic. She leaves a remarkable legacy, and I extend my deepest condolences to her family, friends, and all who loved her.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

In record heat, a warming world has come to rely on China to stay cool

By CNN
Hong Kong (CNN) — With wildfires blazing and temperatures hitting record highs in Europe, one China-made product has never been hotter: air-conditioners.Europeans, who have been slower to adopt AC than those living in other parts of the world, are lining up outside stores and driving long distances in the hopes of securing an AC unit as blistering summer temperatures in some areas surge past 100 degrees Fahrenheit.Major Chinese brands Midea, Gree and Haier are reporting AC higher sales overseas, just as leaders in countries such as France, Germany and Belgium are threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, which they say are damaging their own industries.While air conditioning accounts for a small portion of Chinese exports to the EU, China has seized on the surge in sales as evidence that European consumers need Chinese products.A column recently published by the official state-run news agency Xinhua criticized European policymakers for ignoring the needs of consumers, titled: “The air conditioner paradox: Europe is too hot for tariffs on China.”“Blocking Chinese ACs won’t fix Europe’s problems –– it will only make life harder for ordinary people,” the author of the op-ed wrote.The EU and China will hold discussions over the next few months to address the record trade imbalance of nearly 360 billion euros, or about $406 billion, as of last year. The gap has widened in recent years as China has ramped up exports, particularly of electric and hybrid cars that threaten to displace Europe’s biggest auto brands.“It makes trade negotiations extremely difficult,” said Cameron Johnson, a supply chain expert and senior partner at Tidalwave Solutions, a Shanghai-based consultancy.“If you’re a government, you cannot tell people, ‘Sorry, you can’t have air conditioning because we don’t want Chinese overcapacity.’”‘Too hot for tariffs’Other parts of the world have come to rely on China for air conditioning as well. In the US, where “heat domes” have led to extreme heat warnings in the south and central regions, Chinese brands account for 50% of the market, according to Euromonitor International, a market intelligence company. Globally, that figure reached 65% last year, the firm said.Veronika Kandusova, global insight manager for consumer appliances at Euromonitor International, expects that proportion to increase alongside global temperatures. Chinese brands were able to capitalize on high demand this year, especially in Europe, thanks to flexible supply chains that can rapidly develop new, localized products.European consumers have lagged behind the rest of the world in adopting AC, due to high energy costs, expensive installation fees and restrictions on retrofitting the continent’s older buildings. In the past, summers have not been hot enough to justify the trouble for most homes.The climate crisis is now changing that.Midea Group, one of China’s largest home appliance brands, designed its PortaSplitAC unit specifically for Europe by making it portable, quiet and low enough to keep from blocking European windows. The model has sold more than 200,000 units this year, doubling year-on-year, the company said.“European home appliance markets, long dominated by Bosch, Electrolux, Miele, and other established Western brands by default, are opening competitive gaps that Chinese companies are structurally positioned to fill,” the research firm EqualOcean wrote in a blog post last month. “Midea’s PortaSplit is the product that crystallizes the shift.”Those advantages translate to many other industries that could give China more sway in global trade, said Johnson of Tidalwave Solutions.“This is just the beginning,” he said. “As inflation starts to gain hold in Europe and in the States, people don’t want to pay more for products. So what do you do? Well, you have to have some Chinese stuff.”Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said that European countries are more focused on addressing specific strategic segments and Chinese industrial policies than broadly inhibiting Chinese imports.“The EU is neither looking for complete balance — in the sense that every euro of goods imported must correspond to a euro of goods exported — nor to reduce its reliance on China for more widely available household appliances,” he said.Seeking hotter marketsChina also needs new markets like Europe. Facing a housing slump and declining consumption at home, China has ramped up exports to other nations to buttress slowing economic growth. China ended last year with a record trade surplus of $1.2 trillion.Even with rising exports, China’s reported second-quarter GDP was the lowest in more than three years.Much of China’s recent export strength is driven by high-tech goods like batteries, electric cars and solar. These have become known as the “new three” categories for export growth, as the “old three” –– clothing, furniture, and home appliances –– have tapered.As its summers grow hotter, Europe offers Chinese appliance makers a potential renaissance.Europe has the world’s lowest penetration rates for air conditioning, said Denis Depoux, global managing director at the consultancy Roland Berger, averaging about 20%. That’s compared to 90% penetration in the US, where Chinese exports would also face tariffs.“Europe is the prize,” he said. “If I am a Chinese manufacturer of air conditioning units, Europe is a very attractive market. It’s growing demand, it’s new, it’s affluent, margins are higher.”According to Chinese media, some regions like China’s eastern Shandong province have received government support to boost manufacturing of cooling products and other home appliances this year.Korean and Japanese appliance makers are also benefiting from booming European demand. Meanwhile, University of Michigan economics professor Chris Douglas argued in an op-ed this month that the state of Michigan should manufacture air conditioners for Europe.However, the seasonal nature of cooling demand will limit market opportunities as temperatures eventually ease.“In two months people will have forgotten that air conditioning was needed during the summer, but it will come again,” Depoux said. “Is it a meaningful, sustainable opportunity? I’m not so sure.”One sourcing agent in China was already encouraging retailers to stock up for next year, in a marketing video published to WeChat, China’s popular social messaging app, titled, “Europe’s AC Gold Rush! Print Cash From The Heatwave.”“Secure your market position before the 2027 madness begins,” she said, twirling and pointing to a room full of portable fans and coolers.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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