{"id":20618,"date":"2026-03-13T14:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=20618"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:31:17","slug":"the-crown-downton-abbey-actress-jane-lapotaire-dead-at-81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=20618","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Crown\u2019 &#038; \u2018Downton Abbey\u2019 actress Jane Lapotaire dead at 81!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"87\" data-end=\"244\">Actress <strong data-start=\"95\" data-end=\"113\">Jane Lapotaire<\/strong>, known for <em data-start=\"125\" data-end=\"136\">The Crown<\/em> and <em data-start=\"141\" data-end=\"156\">Downton Abbey<\/em>, has died at 81, the Royal Shakespeare Company confirmed. She passed away on March 5.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"246\" data-end=\"508\">Lapotaire, born Jane Burgess on December 26, 1944, in Ipswich, England, was adopted as a baby. She discovered her love for acting at 17 and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (1961\u20131963). Her career spanned over 60 years, beginning on stage in 1965.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"510\" data-end=\"766\">She won a <strong data-start=\"520\" data-end=\"534\">Tony Award<\/strong> for her role as Edith Piaf in <em data-start=\"565\" data-end=\"571\">Piaf<\/em> and played Gertrude opposite Kenneth Branagh in <em data-start=\"620\" data-end=\"628\">Hamlet<\/em>. On TV, she starred as Princess Alice of Battenberg in <em data-start=\"684\" data-end=\"695\">The Crown<\/em> (season 3) and Princess Irina Kuragin in <em data-start=\"737\" data-end=\"752\">Downton Abbey<\/em> (season 5).<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"768\" data-end=\"1023\">In 2000, she survived a brain hemorrhage and later returned to acting, also publishing books about her life. Weeks before her death, she was honored as <strong data-start=\"920\" data-end=\"989\">Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)<\/strong> for her contributions to drama.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1025\" data-end=\"1188\">Tributes have poured in: \u201cHer Tony-winning Piaf was raw and devastating,\u201d wrote one admirer, while another said, \u201cShe was an extraordinary talent in every role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1190\" data-end=\"1288\">Jane Lapotaire is survived by her son, Rowan Joffe, with ex-husband Roland Joffe. Rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actress Jane Lapotaire, known for The Crown and Downton Abbey, has died at 81, the Royal Shakespeare Company confirmed. She passed away on March 5. Lapotaire, born Jane Burgess on December 26, 1944, in Ipswich, England, was adopted as a baby. She discovered her love for acting at 17 and trained at the Bristol Old&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=20618\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;\u2018The Crown\u2019 &#038; \u2018Downton Abbey\u2019 actress Jane Lapotaire dead at 81!&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20620,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20618\/revisions\/20620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}