Richard E. Grant has shared a tribute to his late wife ahead of her funeral.
The actor, best known for his roles in Withnail And I and more recently Loki, revealed in a social media post last week that Joan Washington, a voice coach, had died aged 71 on Thursday night (September 2). A cause of death was not given.
Ahead of her funeral, Grant posted another tribute on Twitter: “35 years ago we pledged ‘In Sickness and in Health’. That Time has come for us today, @OliviaGranted & I and our friends gather for the funeral of my beloved wife, Joan.
“The depth of our sorrow mirrored by the magnitude of our love.”
35 years ago we pledged ‘In Sickness and in Health’. That Time has come for us today, as @OliviaGranted & I and our friends gather for the funeral of my beloved wife, Joan. The depth of our sorrow mirrored by the magnitude of our love. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💔💔💔❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/3kmX5mujwg
— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) September 9, 2021
Washington trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and had nearly 40 years of experience working in the film industry as a voice and dialect coach. Some of the people she worked with included Anne Hathaway and Emma Stone.
The pair married in 1986 and share a daughter, Olivia, and a stepson, Tom, from Washington’s previous relationship.
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In a joint interview with The Independent in 2011, Grant recalled meeting Washington for the first time.
“I met her at the Actors Centre in London,” Grant said. “She was wearing a boiler suit and had fairly short, cropped hair and Kicker shoes, and was chain-smoking, which I thought was insane.
“She was teaching an accent session with a bunch of actors, and I thought she had the most wonderful voice and huge, sort of monkey eyes. She seemed fairly frenetic. I thought that she was really cute and all that. It was December 1982.”