Jane Lapotaire, Tony and Olivier Winner for ‘Piaf,’ Dies at 81

Jane Lapotaire, the British stage veteran whose “heart-stopping” turn as the tragic French singer Édith Piaf won her Tony and Olivier awards, died March 5, The Guardian reported. She was 81.

Lapotaire performed with the Bristol Old Vic, the National Theatre (under founder Laurence Olivier), The Young Vic — which she co-founded in 1970 — and the Royal Shakespeare Company during her long career.

She was appointed Cbe last year and attended the investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on Feb. 17.

Lapotaire was starring as Maria Callas on a British tour of Terrence McNally’s Master Class when, on a break in Paris in early 2000, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.

Recovering after time in intensive care and two major operations, she wrote a memoir, Time Out of Mind, published in 2003. (Her first memoir, Everybody’s Daughter, Nobody’s Child, came out in 1989.)

She made it back to acting in 2004 and rejoined the RSC in 2013 for a…