Trivia

She was made an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to drama and charitable services.

Mother of Emma Thompson and Sophie Thompson.

Plays together with her daughter Emma Thompson in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and Peter's Friends (1992) as well as in Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest (1997) _ and (without her daughter) in his A Little Chaos (2014). They also played together in the Harry Potter Series, and in Sense and Sensibility.

Former mother-in-law of Kenneth Branagh and Richard Lumsden.

Mother-in-law of Greg Wise.

She is grandmother to Emma Thompson's daughter, Gaia Romilly Wise. She is also grandmother to Sophie Thompson's sons, Ernest Lumsden (born in 1997), and Walter Eric Lumsden (born in 2000).

She met Magic Roundabout creator Eric Thompson when they were drama students and married when she was 23 and had 2 daughters Emma and Sophie.

Her mother Meg worked in a dress shop in Glasgow during the war. Her father, William Law, was a newspaper journalist with the Glasgow Herald. When World War II broke out, he went into the Royal Air Force, separated from his wife, later divorcing. Law did not see her father again until she was 18.

Received an Honorary Doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University and an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

World War II broke out when she was just seven and she (as well as her older brother James) were evacuated to places such as Lenzie, in Dunbartonshire, and Skelmorlie in Ayrshire.

Published her first book, 'Notes to my Mother-In-Law', in November 2009. A book of anecdotes and recollections entitled 'Dead Now Of Course' followed in July 2017.

She at first auditioned for the Bristol Old Vic School, intending to train as a stage designer, but eventually discovered that she wanted to act instead. She was an ensemble member of the Bristol Old Vic from 1954 to 1957.