Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Eggar passed away on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, at the age of 86. Her daughter, actress Jenna Stern, confirmed that the British star died peacefully surrounded by family after struggling with illness for the past five years.
Stern, known for her work in House of Cards, shared a heartfelt tribute on Instagram describing her mother as “beautiful, intelligent and tough enough to be fascinatingly vulnerable.” She revealed she was holding her mother’s hand in her final moments, telling her how much she was loved. Stern indicated that while the experience was difficult, it was also beautiful and a privilege to be present.
Born Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar on March 5, 1939, in Hampstead, England, the actress grew up in the Buckinghamshire countryside. Her father, Ralph, served as a brigadier general in the British Army, while her mother, Muriel, worked as an ambulance driver during World War II. During the war, Eggar lived in the countryside with family friends and spent 12 years in a convent, where exposure to plays, concerts and poetry instilled in her a love of the arts. She adopted the name Samantha at age 16 while at the convent, once joking she seemed immediately destined to be an actor or a nun.
Eggar received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but her mother, horrified at the thought of her daughter becoming an actor, would not allow her to attend. Instead, she was permitted to study painting and drawing at art school. After graduation, she worked as a fashion artist before eventually pursuing her passion for acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
Her breakout role came in 1965 when, at just 25 years old, she starred as an innocent art student kidnapped and held captive by a lonely psychotic played by Terence Stamp in William Wyler’s psychological thriller The Collector. The role, reportedly turned down by Natalie Wood, earned Eggar a best actress Oscar nomination, a Golden Globe for Best Actress, and the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.
In a 2014 interview, Eggar recalled the grueling nature of the production, revealing that she and Stamp never spoke throughout filming to maintain the tension of their characters’ relationship. She described her working relationship with director Wyler as intense, noting that he would pour cold water over her if she did not exude precisely what he wanted in a scene. The actress confirmed that what viewers saw onscreen was really taking place on set.
Following The Collector, Eggar enjoyed a prolific five-year run that included standout performances in multiple acclaimed films. She appeared in Return From the Ashes (1965), where she schemed to murder her stepmother, a concentration camp survivor played by Ingrid Thulin. In 1966, she starred in the romantic comedy Walk, Don’t Run alongside Cary Grant in his final onscreen role and Jim Hutton, playing a woman sharing a cramped apartment with two men during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics housing crunch.
Eggar showcased her musical talents in Doctor Dolittle (1967), singing and dancing alongside Rex Harrison in the fantasy film about a man who can talk to animals. In 1970, she fought against social injustice with Richard Harris and Sean Connery in Martin Ritt’s historical drama The Molly Maguires and starred as an unassuming secretary plunged into terror in The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun.
Roger Greenspun of The New York Times praised her work in Lady in the Car, writing that Eggar was so fine she was in herself sufficient justification for the movie. He described her performance as wonderfully complex, sustained and varied, calling it a virtuoso turn.
By the 1970s and 1980s, Eggar had become a cult favorite in the horror genre. She appeared in The Dead Are Alive! (1972), A Name for Evil (1973), The Uncanny (1977) and Curtains (1983). Her most memorable horror role came in David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979), where she portrayed a deranged mental patient tricked by her doctor into spawning devilish offspring. Cronenberg later described the film as his most autobiographical work, made during a bitter custody battle with his first wife.
Eggar reflected on working with Cronenberg in interviews, expressing fascination with his concept of hives growing on her character and children of anger growing on the outside of her stomach. She described the writing as multilayered and multidimensional, comparing it to Shakespearean work that was rich and robust.
For television, Eggar starred opposite Yul Brynner in a 1972 CBS adaptation of The King and I and took on the role of Phyllis Dietrichson, famously played by Barbara Stanwyck, in a 1973 ABC remake of Double Indemnity. She made a memorable impression as the wife of Dr. Watson in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) and later appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, All My Children and Commander in Chief with Donald Sutherland and Geena Davis.
Later in her career, she provided voice work for characters including Hera in Disney’s Hercules and M in the James Bond video game series. According to her IMDb page, her final role was lending her voice to the Metalocalypse television series in 2012.
Eggar married filmmaker and actor Tom Stern in 1964, and the couple had two children, Nicolas and Jenna, before divorcing in 1971. In her later years, she was involved with the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills and Saint Francis de Sales Parish in Sherman Oaks.
She is survived by her children Nicolas and Jenna Stern, their spouses, three grandchildren named Isabel, Charlie and Calla, and her sisters Margaret Barron, Toni Maricic and Vivien Thursby, along with nieces and nephews. Her family stated that to know Eggar was to understand her love for animals, all creatures great and small.
