Brenda Fricker — an Oscar-winning actress who became well known in America for her role as the “pigeon lady” in Home Alone 2 — has died at age 81.

In a statement to BBC, Fricker’s agent Phil Belfield said: “We will never see her like again and the world is lesser for the lack of her.”

“I was honoured 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,” he added.

Per Hello!, Belfield said the actress passed away following a period of ill health.

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Fricker won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1990 for her role in My Left Foot, in which she played Daniel Day-Lewis’s mother. Per The Irish Times, she was also a steady presence on television with roles on the BBC medical soap Casualty and in films like Omagh and A Man of No Importance.

But for a certain set of audiences, Fricker was best known for her role as the reclusive Central Park pigeon lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

In a 2020 interview, Fricker opened up about how the holiday season was a challenging time for her, as she lived alone.

“I would be lying if I said that it would be a nice and happy Christmas because ... I’m old and I live alone. It can be very dark,” she said in an appearance on The Ray D’Arcy Show.

She added: “I just turn the phone off and put the blinds down. I do pre-record some good programs, and I have my dog and I get myself through it that way. I don’t want to be sounding kind of negative but it is a different kind of Christmas, that’s all.”

Elsewhere in the interview, she said that Christmas itself was not “all that difficult” — but what came after it was.

“What I do find very difficult is New Year’s Eve,” she continued, remarking that there was “no one to turn around to hug or smile at” when her local church bells rang at midnight to usher in the new year.

“I can’t get away from the bells,” she added in the interview.

When host D’Arcy noted that it was “ironic” that her loneliness came at a time when so many families would be watching her in Home Alone 2, Fricker noted that she bore a similarity to her character, saying, “Well, the pigeon lady was very much on her own.”

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In recent years, Fricker became the subject of a wildly popular meme thanks to her resemblance in Home Alone 2 to Piers Morgan, with the news anchor clarifying in a 2020 interview that it was not actually him in the film.