The Windsors and Drop The Dead Donkey star leaves behind huge sum after death

The late Hadyn Gwynne has left an enormous fortune to her two sons in a will she made two months before her death. Tributes flooded in for the Windsors and Drop The Dead Donkey star on October 20, 2023 when she passed away at the age of 66 following a secret cancer battle.

The Tony and Olivier Award-nominated star had an impressive career that spanned across film, television, and theatre, becoming a familiar face to British audiences. It is believed she even impressed several senior royals with her portrayal of Queen Camila. 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 goes by the name Cain.

My Gwynne, who lived in Harlesden in the heart of North West London, additionally made provision for £1,000 donations to be made to six charities. This included 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 Gwyne 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 the Channel 4 period drama, The Windsors.

She also starred in Peak Practice, Dalziel and Pascoe, Merseybeat and as Lady Susan Hussey, a woman of the royal bedchamber in the fifth series of The Crown on . Hadyn wasn’t just a successful actress on the silver screen, she was also a huge hit on the stage too, earning a Tony nomination for her role in Billy Elliott the Musical.

Hadyn wasn’t just a successful actress on the silver screen, she was also a huge hit on the stage too, earning a Tony nomination for her role in Billy Elliott the Musical. In April last year, Olivier Awards viewers branded ITV “shameful” after the broadcaster failed to show in full the moment Hayden 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 Olivier.

She had been nominated four times prior to her work in City of Angels, Billy Elliott, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and The Threepenny Opera. Yet fans at home only got to see a section of the speech which 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.”

Speaking to the Daily Mail back in 2021, Gwynne admitted the one thing she has learned from life is to do “the thing that makes you joyful.” She told the outlet: “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 decision 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 from when she was in her early 20s where she shared her concerns about whether she had left it too late to become an actress.

She said: ”Now from the vantage of the 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.