Haydn Gwynne, Billy Elliot Tony Nominee, Dies at 66

West End stage stalwart Haydn Gwynne has died aged 66 after a recent diagnosis of cancer.

Gwynne appeared in London and on Broadway as the original Mrs. Wilkinson in Billy Elliot: The Musical. She was nominated for a 2009 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World awards for her performance.

Her West End credits include The Audience opposite Helen Mirren (where she played Margaret Thatcher and earned a WhatsOnStage Award), Anything Goes, The Threepenny Opera, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and City of Angels, among many others. In 2022, she sang “The Ladies Who Lunch” in the Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends concert; she was in rehearsals for the ongoing West End mounting when forced to pull out due to her illness. Earlier this year, Gwynne starred in the West End in The Great British Bake Off Musical (where she played a character inspired by judge Prue Leith) and Jack Thorne’s When Winston Went to War with the Wireless at the Donmar Warehouse.

Other stage credits include Becky Shawat the Almeida, Richard III at the Old Vic and numerous shows with the Royal Shakespeare Company. On screen, she appeared in The Crown, Death in Paradise and hit comedy Drop the Dead Donkey. 

Gwynne died in the early hours of October 20, surrounded by her sons, family, and friends.