Vanessa Redgrave

Often Works With…

From her start on the London stage in the 1960s, Vanessa Redgrave went on to become one of the most internationally respected actresses of stage and screen, with the Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Tony awards to prove it. Redgrave was trained in the classical tradition but made her mark representing forward-thinking women both on-screen and off, essaying non-conforming free-thinkers like modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan in “Isadora” (1968) and a 19th century American feminist in “The Bostonians” (1984), while earning her share of controversy for her outspoken activism through decades of international politics and human rights issues. Redgrave brought the same passion for her convictions to her acting work, which was very expressive and unafraid of extreme emotional territories. Despite her ability to carry a film with a lead bold character, Redgrave spent a considerable amount of her screen career as a versatile supporting player in art house fare like the controversial “Julia” (1971), biopics like “Wilde” (1997) and “The Gathering Storm” (HBO, 2002), period dramas such as “Howard’s End” (1992), “Atonement” (2007), and American independent films like “Little Odessa” (1994) and “The Pledge” (2001). She also made a few successful forays into Hollywood blockbuster territory with supporting roles in “Mission: Impossible” (1996) and “Deep Impact” (1998) while her stage career continued unabated, the actress regularly hitting the boards on Broadway and the West End in classical works and modern dramas. As the center of a family acting dynasty that went back several generations and would go on to produce further generations of actors, writers, and directors, Redgrave held an esteemed position in entertainment history for her own high level of work and that which she generated in her collaborators.

Born in London, England on Jan. 30, 1937, Redgrave was born into an acting empire as the daughter of legendary stage and screen performer Michael Redgrave – best known for Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” (1938) – and actress Rachel Kempson. The sibling of two equally notable actors – Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave – she entered London’s School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and made her professional debut four years later in “A Touch of the Sun,” co-starring her famous father. Redgrave became one of the British stage’s shining lights during the 1960s with productions of “As You Like It” and “The Seagull,” as well as her run in the title role of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1966) marking her greatest stage achievement of the period. She was unable to follow the play to Broadway or appear in its movie adaptation – which would win Maggie Smith an Oscar – due to her own film career. Redgrave became a movie star thanks to the 1966 comedy “Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment” in which she played the long-suffering ex-wife of an eccentric young man (David Warner). She earned nominations from the Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the Cannes Film Festival for her performance and followed it up by playing another hip Londoner in Michelangelo Antonioni’s stylish “Blow-Up” (1966). Both pictures helped solidify Redgrave’s screen persona as a modern, intelligent woman whose cool and impassive exterior masked a range of conflicting emotions and passions.

Redgrave’s next feature was “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1968), a BAFTA-nominated historical drama by Tony Richardson, who was Redgrave’s husband and the father of her two daughters. That union collapsed in 1967 amidst much-publicized allegations of his affair with French actress Jeanne Moreau. That same year, Redgrave crossed the Atlantic to star as Guinevere in the film version of the hit Broadway musical “Camelot” (1967). Her Lancelot was up-and-coming Italian actor Franco Nero, and their on-screen romance translated into an off-screen relationship that produced a son – future director and screenwriter, Carlo Nero. Redgrave was perfectly-cast and earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of iconoclastic modern dance innovator Isadora Duncan in the biopic “Isadora” (1968). As her fame grew, so did her reputation as a fierce political campaigner for liberal and world causes. A socialist by her own description, she was arrested during anti-military and nuclear proliferation protests, and led marches against the Vietnam War in the United States. She also ran four times for a seat in the British Parliament as a candidate for the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which advocated the dissolution of capitalism and the British monarchy.

The actress’ star dimmed a bit during the 1970s, and her difficulty finding substantial work on screen led to supporting parts or leads in more artistic and independent-minded productions. She was top-billed in the historic drama “Mary, Queen of Scots” (1971) and earned an Oscar nod for portrayal of Scotland’s last Roman Catholic leader, but her subsequent appearances found smaller and more select audiences. She played a mentally unstable nun whose passion for a local priest (Oliver Reed) leads to a horrific witch hunt in Ken Russell’s shocking “The Devils” (1971), and essayed the tragic Andromache opposite Katharine Hepburn in the US-Greek production of “The Trojan Women” (1971). Returning to film in 1974 as one of the all-star suspects in Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” she also played a patient of Sigmund Freud whose plight attracts the attention of Sherlock Holmes in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” (1976). That same year, she made her Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen’s “The Lady from the Sea.”

In 1977, Redgrave was cast in the pivotal title role in “Julia” (1977), based on playwright Lillian Hellman’s own friendship with a woman who later enlists her in a fight against the growing tide of Nazism in Europe. Redgrave won the Best Actress Oscar for her impassioned performance, but the award ceremony was tainted by protests over her acceptance speech, which cited her refusal to cave in the face of threats from what she described as “Zionist hoodlums.” Redgrave was an open supporter of the Palestinian cause, and her portrayal of a Jew in the film generated anger from the Jewish Defense League who openly protested the Oscars due to her nomination. They were also upset about the 1977 documentary “The Palestinian,” which she narrated and produced. Despite criticism from Jewish groups, Redgrave won the Oscar for “Julia” in 1977 and went on to earn an Emmy for her performance as a concentration camp survivor in the 1980 television movie “Playing for Time.” There was no denying, however, that the controversy had a chilling effect on her career.

For much of the next decade, Redgrave experienced her share of box office failures like “Agatha” (1979), but she maintained the respect and interest of art house fans with roles including that of a lesbian suffragette in “The Bostonians” (1984), which earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and “Wetherby” (1985), which marked the directorial debut of playwright David Hare. “Prick Up Your Ears” (1987) brought her a New York Film Critics Award for her turn as Peggy Ramsay, agent to playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman). Television also offered her exceptional roles, including that of transsexual tennis player Renee Richards in 1986’s “Second Serve” and the Joan Crawford role in a remake of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” opposite sister Lynne in 1991. She also appeared on Broadway for the first time in over a decade in a 1988 production of Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending,” which was filmed for broadcast on TNT in 1990.

Redgrave settled into a string of small but high profile roles like the period costume drama “Howards End” (1992), which earned the actress another Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and “Little Odessa” (1994), where she played the seriously ill mother of a Russian mobster (Tim Roth). Tom Cruise and Brian De Palma handpicked her to play arms dealer “Max” in “Mission: Impossible” (1996), and she shone as Oscar Wilde’s mother in “Wilde” (1997) as well as in a rare lead as Virginia Woolf’s reflective heroine, “Mrs. Dalloway” in 1997. Save for the latter, these supporting turns allowed Redgrave the fluidity to focus on other aspects of her career – from stage performances to her role as a United Nations Special Representative of the Arts, for which she mounted festivals in Kosovo and other war-torn regions. She and brother Corin also established the Moving Theater, which mounted a production of the long-lost Tennessee Williams play “Not About Nightingales” in 1998.

Balancing turns in big budget productions with stellar performances in quieter independent films, Redgrave continued to work steadily after reaching her 60th birthday. She played the female head of a mob family in the campy TV miniseries “Bella Mafia” (1997) and appeared in the sci-fi disaster film “Deep Impact” (1998) while taking supporting roles in dramas “Girl, Interrupted” (2000), Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” (2001) and “A Rumor of Angels” (2000). Her turn as a sixties-era lesbian who loses her long-time partner in the tragic “1961” episode of HBO’s “If These Walls Could Talk 2” earned her a Golden Globe and an award for Excellence in Media from GLAAD. She followed this with an Emmy-nominated turn as Clementine Churchill, wife of famed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in “The Gathering Storm” in 2002. In 2003, she received her first Tony Award for a Broadway production of “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Her political voice still as strong as ever, during this period Redgrave and brother Corin launched the Party for Peace and Progress, which stumped against the U.S. and U.K.’s involvement in Iraq, as well as for the rights of political dissidents and refugees.

In 2005, Redgrave returned to American television in a recurring role on FX Network’s controversial series, “Nip/Tuck” (2003- ) as the mother of Julia McNamara, played by her own daughter, Joely Richardson. She also co-starred with daughter Natasha in the well-regarded Merchant/Ivory production “The White Countess,” and enjoyed substantial parts in a string of critically lauded features, including “Venus” (2006), “Evening” (2007), and “Atonement” (2007), which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Consistently active in theater, Redgrave was awarded the Ibsen Centennial Award in 2006 for her efforts in plays by the acclaimed author, but she was nominated for a Tony for portraying author Joan Didion in the one-woman play “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2007). In March 2009, Redgrave found herself in the news for the most unfortunate of circumstances when her eldest daughter and frequent collaborator, Natasha Richardson, suffered critical head injuries in a skiing accident while on vacation in Canada. Redgrave, her daughter Joely, her own sister Lynn, and Richardson’s husband of over a decade, actor Liam Neeson, kept a bedside vigil at the New York hospital Natasha was transferred to after the head injury two days before. Then on March 18, 2009, Redgrave lost her daughter after she was taken off life support following confirmation that she was officially brain dead. She was just 45.

Born:
Vanessa Redgrave on January 30, 1937 in London, England, United Kingdom
Job Titles:
Actor, Director, Producer, Author, Costume and set designer, Activist

Family

Brother: Corin Redgrave. Born July 16, 1939; acted with Vanessa in four films including A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Vacation (1971); co-founded the Moving Theater with sister Vanessa in 1994
Daughter: Joely Richardson. Born Jan. 9, 1965; father, Tony Richardson; formerly married to producer Tim Bevan; Joely played a young incarnation of her mother in Wetherby (1985); played mother and daughter in the FX series, Nip/Tuck in 2005
Daughter: Natasha Richardson. Born May 11, 1963; father, Tony Richardson; formerly married to producer Robert Fox; married to Liam Neeson; died March 18, 2009 of head injury from skiing accident. She was 45 years old
Father: Michael Redgrave. Born in 1908; died in 1985 from complications from Parkinson s disease
Granddaughter: Daisy Bevan. Born in March 1992; daughter of Joely Richardson and Tim Bevan
Grandfather: Roy Redgrave. Born in 1873; had been previously married and sired four children before his wedding to Daisy Scudamore; died in Australia in 1922
Grandmother: Daisy Scudamore.
Grandson: Daniel Jack Neeson. Born in 1996; son of Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson
Grandson: Micheal Richard Antonio Neeson. Born June 22, 1995; son of Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson
Mother: Rachel Kempson. Acted with Vanessa in Deja Vu (1998)
Nephew: Luke Redgrave. Born in 1967; son of Corin Redgrave and Diedre Hamilton-Hill
Niece: Jemma Redgrave. Born in 1965; daughter of Corin Redgrave and Diedre Hamilton-Hill; appeared as Irina on the London stage in The Three Sisters with aunts Lynn and Vanessa in 1990
Niece: Kelly Clark. Born in 1970; daughter of Lynn Redgrave and John Clark
Sister: Lynn Redgrave. Born in 1943; acted with Vanessa in the London stage production of Three Sisters and the TV remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991)
Sister-in-law: Kika Markham. Second wife of Corin Redgrave
Son: Carlo Sparanero. Born in 1969; father, Franco Nero; graduated from NYU Film School; directed mother and half-sister Joely Richardson in Uninvited (1999)

Significant Others

Companion: Franco Nero. met while filming Camelot (1967); played Lancelot to Redgrave s Guenevere; father of Carlo; had seven-year relationship
Companion: Timothy Dalton. worked together on Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Agatha (1979), in which Redgrave played novelist Agatha Christie and Dalton played her adulterous husband; also worked together on the London stage in Antony and Cleopatra and A Touch of the Poet ; no longer together

Education

Central School of Speech and Drama, London, England
Queensgate School, London, England

Milestones

1957 Stage debut in The Reluctant Debutante at the Frinton Summer Theatre, Essex
1958 Film acting debut in Behind the Mask (played onscreen daughter of Michael Redgrave)
1958 London stage debut in A Touch of the Sun opposite her father Michael Redgrave
1961 Delivered an acclaimed performance as Rosalind in As You Like It at the RSC; recreated for British television in 1962
1964 Won plaudits for her stage role of Nina in The Seagull ; recreated on film in 1968
1966 Cast as Anne Boleyn in the award-winning film A Man for All Seasons
1966 First film lead, Morgan!/Morgan - A Suitable Case for Treatment ; earned first Best Actress Oscar nomination; sister Lynn was among her competitors for the prize for her work in Georgy Girl
1966 Had title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in London
1967 First American film, Camelot an adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical
1967 Initial film with husband Tony Richardson, The Sailor from Gibraltar
1968 Acted in The Charge of the Light Brigade directed by Tony Richardson
1968 Garnered second Best Actress Academy Award nomination for playing famed free-spirited dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora
1971 Cast as a hunchback nun in Ken Russell s outlandish The Devils
1971 Co-starred in Michael Cacoyannis The Trojan Women ; played Andromacha
1971 Earned third Best Actress Oscar nomination in the title role of Mary, Queen of Scots ; starred opposite Glenda Jackson who was cast as Elizabeth I
1973 First played the Egyptian queen in Shakespeare s Antony and Cleopatra in London
1974 Acted opposite Charlton Heston in Macbeth in Los Angeles
1974 Was among the all-star cast of Murder on the Orient Express
1976 Made Broadway debut in Ibsen s The Lady from the Sea
1976 Offered a delightful turn as a cocaine addicted entertainer who meets Nicol Williamson s Sherlock Holmes in The Seven Per-Cent Solution
1977 Delivered luminous, richly detailed performance as Julia in the film based on Lillian Hellman s questionable memoir; received the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award; first film with Maximillian Schell
1977 Financed the documentary The Palestinians
1979 Portrayed the mystery novelist Agatha Christie in Agatha, which speculated about a period in the writer s life when she went missing
1980 American TV-movie debut, Playing for Time (CBS); portrayed concentration camp survivor Fania Fenelon who during her internment participated in an all-female orchestra; received Emmy Award
1982 Engaged to narrate a performance of Stravinsky s Oedipus Rex at the Boston Symphony Orchestra; performance canceled after BSO received bomb threats; Redgrave later sued
1982 Starred as a middle-aged woman who finds herself pregnant in My Body, My Child (ABC)
1983 First film after four year absence from the big screen, Wagner
1984 Appeared opposite Christopher Reeve in the London stage production of The Aspern Papers, a play by Michael Redgrave
1984 Played Henry James feminist heroine in the Merchant Ivory film version of The Bostonians ; received fourth Best Actress Academy Award nomination
1985 Cast as one of the women accused of witchcraft in the Salem trials in the three-part PBS miniseries Three Sovereigns for Sarah
1985 Starred in David Hare s intriguing Wetherby ; daughter Joely Richardson played her character in flashback sequences
1985 Starred with Jonathan Pryce in The Seagull ; this time out played Arkadina
1986 Co-starred as the Czar s scheming half-sister Sophia in the NBC miniseries Peter the Great ; acted opposite Maximillian Schell; received Emmy nomination in the supporting category
1986 Portrayed transsexual Renee Richards, a former US Naval surgeon who competed as a woman in the US Tennis Association in Second Serve (CBS); received Emmy nomination
1987 Offered a scene-stealing performance as literary agent Peggy Ramsay in the Joe Orton biopic Prick Up Your Ears
1988 Acted opposite Charlton Heston in the TV remake of A Man for All Seasons (TNT)
1988 Cast as Lady Torrance, the heroine of Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending in a London production helmed by Sir Peter Hall; recreated part on Broadway in 1989; filmed for TNT in 1990
1989 Starred in Martin Sherman s play A Madhouse in Goa
1990 With sister Lynn and niece Jemma, acted in London production of Chekhov s Three Sisters
1991 Again played Isadora Duncan in Martin Sherman s stage play When She Danced
1991 Co-starred as the victimized Blanche opposite sister Lynn Redgrave in the TV-movie remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
1991 Offered a fine performance as the mannish Amelia in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
1991 Portrayed the Empress Elizabeth in the TNT biopic Young Catherine, about the Russian ruler Catherine the Great; Maximillian Schell played Frederick the Great
1991 Was originally hired to tour the USA in Lettice and Lovage ; dropped after protests due to her political stances
1992 Had pivotal role as Ruth Wilcox in the Merchant Ivory version of E M Forster s Howards End ; earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination
1993 Co-founded Moving Theater with brother Corin
1993 Tracked down a previously unproduced play by Tennessee Williams, Not About Nightingales ; presented by the Moving Theater Company starring Corin Redgrave in London and NYC in 1998 and 1999 respectively
1994 Played Vita Sackville-West opposite Eileen Atkins Virginia Woolf in the Off-Broadway play Vita and Virginia
1994 Was moving as the dying mother of a hit man in Little Odessa ; Schell was cast as her husband
1996 Conceived the costume design, directed and starred in a staging of Antony and Cleopatra ; first performed at the Alley Theater in Houston and in 1997 Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre
1996 Delivered an astringent cameo in Mission: Impossible
1996 Starred alongside Paul Scofield and Eileen Atkins in a revival of Ibsen s John Gabriel Borkman in London
1997 Delivered a scene-stealing cameo as a deeply religious woman in Smilla s Sense of Snow
1997 Headlined the CBS miniseries Bella Mafia as the matriarch in a mobster family
1997 Offered a luminous turn as the title character in Mrs. Dalloway, the screen adaptation of Virginia Woolf s novel adapted by Eileen Atkins
1997 Offered a marvelous turn as the title character s mother in the biopic Wilde
1997 Teamed onscreen with her real-life mother Rachel Kempson in Henry Jaglom s Deja Vu
1998 Adapted, designed, directed and co-starred with Rachel Kempson in Sarah Bernhardt Comes to Town
1998 Reteamed with Maximillian Schell as his wife in Deep Impact
1999 Acted opposite her brother Corin and his wife Kika Markham in a London stage revival of Noel Coward s Song at Twilight
1999 Directed by son Carlo Nero in Uninvited
1999 Had pivotal role as a psychiatrist in Girl, Interrupted
1999 Played small part of a supporter of the arts married to an industrialist in Cradle Will Rock
1999 Starred in the Italian opera Eleanora as the heroine and martyr of a 1799 Neapolitan uprising
2000 Delivered a dignified, heartbreaking turn as an elderly lesbian coping with her deceased lover s clueless family in the moving 1961 segment of If These Walls Could Talk 2 (HBO); received Emmy Award
2000 Portrayed Prospero in staging of The Tempest at Shakespeare s Globe Theatre in London
2001 Appeared with brother Corin in a London stage prodction of The Cherry Orchard
2001 Had featured role in Sean Penn s The Pledge, co-starring Jack Nicholson and Robin Wright Penn
2002 Co-starred with Albert Finney in the award winning BBC/HBO co-produced, The Gathering Storm ; earned Golden Globe and SAG nominations for Best Actress
2002 Made first stage appearance with daughter Joely Richardson in a British staging of Lady Windermere s Fan ; portrayed mother and daughter
2002 Starred in the Hallmark made-for-television movie The Locket
2003 Appeared on Broadway in her award winning performance in Long Day s Journey Into Night
2004 Guest-starred opposite daughter, Joely Richardson, on several episodes of Nip/Tuck ; playing the mother of Richardson s character
2005 Appeared alongside her daughter, Natasha Richardson and sister, Lynn Redgrave in James Ivory s White Countess
2006 Starred opposite Peter O Toole in Venus a film directed by Roger Michell and written by Hanif Kureishi
2007 Cast in “The Fever” the HBO Films adaptation of writer/actor Wallace Shawn s stage play; earned a SAG nomination for Outstanding Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
2007 Portrayed a dying woman reflecting on her youth in the ensemble film, Evening
2007 Starred in a one-woman stage adaptation of Joan Didion s The Year of Magical Thinking earned a Tony nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Was a member of Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) during early 1960s