The late Haydn Gwynne has left a hefty fortune to her two sons in a will made two months before her death aged 66.
Tributes flooded in for the Windsors and Drop The Dead Donkey actress on October 20 2023 when she passed away following a secret cancer battle.
The Tony and Olivier Award-nominated star, whose portrayal of Queen Camila is believed to have impressed a number of senior royals, had a career that spanned television, film, and theatre, and was a familiar face to British audiences.
It has now been revealed Ms Gwynne’s will states the bulk of her estate valued at £1,385,601 will pass to her two sons Orlando and Harrison – the latter of which also goes by the name Cain.
Ms Gwynne, who lived in Harlesden, north west London, additionally made provision for £1,000 donations to be made to six charities: Sightsavers (who she did voluntary work for), Cancer Research, Oxfam, Age UK, Barnardo’s and Crisis UK.
The remainder of the assets are earmarked for her sons, who were also the executors of the will.
Shortly before her death, the actress had separated from her partner Jason Phipps, a Jungian psychoanalyst. The pair, parents of Orlando and Harrison, remained friends.
Ms Gwynne won widespread acclaim in the 1990s as the no-nonsense journalist Alex Pates in Drop the Dead Donkey, before later delighting fans as the hilariously haughty Camilla in Channel 4’s The Windsors.
Haydn Gwynne attending the Women’s Prize for Fiction awards ceremony at Bedford Square Garden, London in September 2021
Gwynne’s sons Orlando and Harrison Phipps picked up an award in April 2024 on their late mother’s behalf
She also starred in Peak Practice, Dalziel and Pascoe, Merseybeat and as Lady Susan Hussey, woman of the royal bedchamber in the fifth series of The Crown on Netflix.
And the star was successful too on the stage, earning a Tony nomination for her role in Billy Elliot the Musical.
In April last year, Olivier Awards viewers branded ITV ‘shameful’ after the broadcaster failed to show in full the moment Haydn Gwynne was announced as Best Supporting Actress.
She was granted the posthumous honour for her performance as Stanley Baldwin in When Winston Went to War.
The award was accepted on her behalf by son Orlando, who said it had been a ‘dream’ of his late mother’s to win an OIivier.
She had been nominated four times prior for her work in City of Angels, Billy Elliott, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and The Threepenny Opera.
Yet viewers at home only got to see a section of the speech as it was relegated to a montage at the end of the two-hour programme.
In the clip, her son could be seen saying: ‘It was a career long dream of hers to win an Olivier so she would have been thrilled.
‘She loved the stage above all other kinds of acting. She said if she came away from a show having made one good friend it was worth doing and she often made many.’
Haydn Gwynne as Camilla and Harry Enfield as Charles in The Windsors. Her portrayal is believed to have impressed a number of senior royals
Drop The Dead Donkey with Haydn Gwynne as Alex Pates
Gwynne – who died in October aged 66 following a secret cancer battle – was granted a posthumous honour for her performance as Stanley Baldwin in When Winston Went to War
Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2021, Gwynne said the one thing she has learned from life is to do ‘the thing that makes you joyful’.
She told the paper: ‘You don’t realise how young you are when you’re young — or all the opportunities you have.
‘You have so much anxiety about the life decisions you need to make, you just can’t see the currencies that you have. Not just your looks and beautiful young skin, but that this really is a time to have a go at things.’
At the time, Gwynne had recently seen a letter that she wrote to her sister when she was in her early 20s where she spoke about how she was worried about whether she had left it too late to become an actress.
She said: ‘Now from the vantage of middle age, I wish I could have seen myself with adult eyes.’
Gwynne’s last appearance in the West End was when she starred as character Pam Lee – thought to be based off the presenter Prue Leith – in The Great British Bake Off Musical in March.
