Emma Freud explained that after a loving evening with her family “she told us all to f*** off so she could go to sleep. And then she never woke up.”
walesonline.co.uk and Jamie Downham
15:21, 27 Nov 2025
A scene from Love Actually(Image: ©2003 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved)
Tributes have been paid to Jill Freud, a beloved actress who starred in Love Actually and countless other roles. Ms Freud reached the age of 98 on a daily lunch of a glass of red wine and a packet of crisps, plus morning tap-dancing classes she took part in during lockdown.
Evacuated to Oxford as a child, Jill lived with the Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis and was the inspiration for Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. After two years with the Lewis family she left to pursue her acting ambitions and her last role before she died was playing the Downing Street housekeeper in Love Actually.
Jill’s family confirmed her death in a moving statement, with her TV and radio star daughter Emma reflecting on her long and interesting life, writing: “‘My beautiful 98 year old mum has taken her final bow.
“After a loving evening – where we knew she was on her way – surrounded by children, grandchildren and pizza, she told us all to f*** off so she could go to sleep. And then she never woke up. Her final words were ‘I love you.’
“As a child she was evacuated to Oxford and ended up living with CS Lewis for three years… he based the character of Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on her.”
Emma, who is married to Love Actually and Four Weddings creator Richard Curtis, continued: “She became an actress/producer and ran two rep theatre companies in Suffolk for 30 years – employing 100’s of actors who loved her for her passion, her care, her shepherd’s pie, her devotion to regional theatre and her commitment to actor’s rights. Her last film role was as the housekeeper at Downing Street in Love Actually.
“She had the same lunch every day – a glass of red wine and a packet of crisps, and during Covid, aged 93, locked up with 3 other Freud gals, she took part in a tap class every morning.”
Signing off her tribute with a red heart, Emma added: “She was 98, mother of 5, grandmother of 17, great grandmother of 7 – she was feisty, outrageous, kind, loving and mischievous. Lucky old heaven getting such a dazzling newcomer.”
Jill studied at the prestigious RADA theatre school, which CS Lewis paid for, and in 1980, she created her own theatre company called Jill Freud and Company and later received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of East Anglia “for services to the theatre”.
She married Clement Freud, the TV and radio star who was one of Britain’s first ever celebrity chefs and the grandson of Sigmund Freud, in 1950.
Speaking about being the inspiration for Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe she told the Hollywood Reporter in 2014: “It’s years since I read it, but in the stage version I saw a few years ago, Lucy was very likable – it was quite flattering.”
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