A graduate of the State Higher School of Drama in Warsaw in 1955, she was for several decades a member of the city’s top theatre companies.
She achieved great popularity for her roles in television series, as well as in films, including Ryszard Bugajski’s The Interrogation and Antoni Krauze’s Smoleńsk, in which she portrayed Solidarity legend Anna Walentynowicz.
Politics occupied an important place in Łaniewska’s life. A member of the Polish United Workers Party for a brief period in her younger days, in the late 1970s she played an active role in the anti-communist opposition, notably in the distribution of clandestine publications.
After the birth of Solidarity in 1980, she founded a Solidarity Union at Warsaw’s Ateneum Theatre, organized patriotic concerts and worked closely with Father Jerzy Popiełuszko in charity projects for persecuted workers.
In recent decades, she was a staunch political conservative. For the past seven years she contributed a column to the weekly Sieci.
Łaniewska’s distinctions included the Golden Gloria Artis Medal of Cultural Merit and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland. Last month, she received the annual award for lifetime achievement from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter that Łaniewska not only created many unforgettable roles but was also committed to anti-communist activities.
“In a free Poland, she did not give up her fight for a better, just shape for the country. RIP,” Morawiecki added.
(mk/pk)