DHAKA: Acclaimed actress Billie Whitelaw, famous for her roles on stage and screen, has died at the age of 82.

The Coventry-born star, who was made a CBE in 1991, worked in close collaboration with playwright Samuel Beckett, who described her as a perfect actress.

She died in the early hours of Sunday at a nursing home in London, her son Matthew Muller told the BBC.

“I could not have asked for a more loving mum,” he said.

“She had an incredible career - but first and foremost she was my mum - and that’s who I will miss,” he added.

Whitelaw made her radio acting debut aged just 11, reports the BBC.

In 1950, she made her first stage appearance in Bradford in a performance of Pink String and Sealing Wax, before moving into films and television.

She was well known for her role as Baylock in horror film The Omen.

Whitelaw also played a starring role as Violet Kray in The Krays and more recently appeared in comedy Hot Fuzz.

During her career, she won a British Academy Award for best newcomer for her role in Hell is a City. She also won Best Supporting Actress for her parts in Twisted Nerve and Charlie Bubbles.

Whitelaw appeared in a number of TV series, including BBC One’s Dixon of Dock Green.

But in her autobiography Billie Whitelaw . . . Who He?, she said it was her work with Beckett that generated most interest.

Without their association, she wrote, “nobody would have been remotely interested in my autobiography.”

She described Beckett as demanding and meticulous, but added “Because I knew he was radiating love and he cared and he wanted you to be perfect... it didn’t upset me.”

In a 1997 interview with The Independent, the actress said death did not scare her.

She told the newspaper “Death’s not one of those things that frighten the life out of me.”

She added: “Getting up on stage with the curtain going up frightens me more.”

She was married to actor Peter Vaughan between 1952 and 1966.

Later, she married German actor and writer Robert Muller, who died in 1998.

BDST: 1031 HRS, DEC 22, 2014