By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN, July 17 (Reuters) - Brenda Fricker, the first Irish actress to win an Oscar for playing the determined mother of disabled artist Christy Brown in the 1989 film "My Left Foot", has died at the age of 81 after a period of ill health, her agent said on Friday.
Fricker, described as among the most respected Irish actors of her generation by the Irish Times, won the best supporting actress prize for the Irish-made drama that also landed Daniel Day-Lewis the first of his record three best actor Oscars.
Fricker also starred in another renowned Irish film of that era, "The Field", and went on to play supporting roles in 1990s U.S. films including "So I Married an Axe Murderer", "A Time to Kill" and "Home Alone 2", where she played the kindly "Pigeon Lady" opposite Macaulay Culkin.
"She was an amazing actress, amazing character, a forceful personality," "My Left Foot" director Jim Sheridan told a popular lunchtime phone-in show on national broadcaster RTE that was dedicated to Fricker's career.
"She was vibrant and full of life and had her own opinions. She took no prisoners, let's put it that way."
Born in Dublin, Fricker began acting in the 1960s at the age of 19 in film, on stage and later in popular television shows in Ireland and Britain before her searing performance as Bridget Fagan Brown won her wide acclaim.
The success of "My Left Foot" was also a turning point for the now booming Irish film industry.
"Many's the time we're talking about 'oh we've got another 10 nominations' but back then it was literally this outlier, the little film that did," said Dublin International Film Festival director Grainne Humphreys, a close friend of Fricker's.
"The country's film industry is built on the back of the success of 'My Left Foot'."
Fricker, writing in the Irish Independent in 2015, said she was probably prouder that her name became Dublin rhyming slang for knickers than for the Academy Award, which she stored in a plastic shopping bag under her sink before it made its way to the shelf.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Olivier Holmey)
