In maybe the saddest news you’ll read all day, actress Brenda Flicker, who plays the pigeon lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York alongside Macaulay Culkin, will spend Christmas alone. This is especially heartbreaking seeing as the actress is a part of many families' Christmas traditions. After all, the Home Alone series being a holiday staple in households all over the world.
It may be this ode to Christmas tradition that brought Brenda Flicker, now semi-retired from acting, to The Ray D’Arcy Show (via People) for an interview. Flicker speaks on how she has in previous years spent the holiday alone, and that this year was no different. Here it is in her own words:
I would be lying if I said that it would be a nice and happy Christmas because ... I'm old and I live alone. It can be very dark. I just turn the phone off and put the blinds down. I do pre-record some good programs, and I have my dog and I get myself through it that way. I don't want to be sounding kind of negative but it is a different kind of Christmas, that's all.
In 2020 fashion, Brenda Flicker won’t be the only one spending the holidays alone this year. Due to COVID guidelines, this year will see a lot of families and individuals staying home. Flicker has some advice for keeping the holidays positive and relaxed: turn your phone off, the blinds down, and embrace being by yourself this Christmas.
The actress has seen a new surge of fame this particular holiday season, as the character she portrays on Home Alone 2 has recently been used in an SNL skit by Kristen Wiig. This is not the first time Brenda Flicker’s pigeon lady character has come back into the pop culture relevance rotation, though. The character got some attention a few years ago when Piers Morgan’s son tweeted a picture of his father and the pigeon lady side by side, claiming the two may be the same person. Since then, we have also seen pigeon lady memes appearing.
Brenda Flicker is definitely more than just the pigeon lady though, in fact, she is an Oscar winner with over 40 years of acting under her belt. Flicker won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in My Left Foot. You can spot the veteran actress in over 80 movies and series, notably A Time To Kill and So I Married an Axe Murderer.
If you too are having a lowkey Christmas this year, there are a number of new films releasing this Christmas Day. If money is tight, check out our list of free streaming movies, or even pop the VHS copy of Home Alone 2 into that VCR in honor of Brenda Flicker’s pigeon lady. Or, you know, you could just stream it.
