Vanessa Redgrave

Often Works With…

Born in London, England on Jan. 30, 1937, Redgrave was the daughter of legendary stage and screen performer Michael Redgrave (Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes,” 1938) and actress Rachel Kempson. The sister of two equally notable actors – Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave – she entered the School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and made her professional debut four years later in “A Touch of the Sun,” which co-starred her famous father. Redgrave quickly became one of the British stage’s shining lights in the ‘60s in productions of “As You Like It” and “The Seagull;” her turn in the title role of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1966) marked 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. Having made her on-screen debut as the daughter of Michael Redgrave’s character in the 1958 film “Behind the Mask,” Redgrave became a movie star thanks to the 1966 film “Morgan!” in which she played eccentric David Warner’s long-suffering ex-wife. For that film, she earned nominations from the Oscars, Golden Globe, and BAFTA, as well as the Cannes Film Festival Award. She followed it with a cameo as Anne Boleyn in “A Man for All Seasons” (1966) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” (1966). All three pictures helped solidify Redgrave’s screen persona of 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 (“Tom Jones,” 1963), 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 which produced a son, future director and screenwriter Carlo Nero. Redgrave and Nero maintained an on-again off-again relationship for the next four decades before eventually tying the knot in 2007.

As Redgrave’s fame in film and on stage 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, as well as 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. Her support for the IRA and the PLO in particular earned her criticism from Jewish groups, who protested her participation in the 1980 television movie “Playing for Time,” in which she played a concentration camp survivor – ultimately winning an Emmy for her performance. In the 1990s and 2000s, she was an outspoken advocate of the Chechen people’s struggle against the Russian government, and spoke out fervently against the war in Iraq. With her brother, Corin, she 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.

Redgrave’s star dimmed a bit during the 1970s. The actress found it difficult to find substantial work on screen, and turned frequently to supporting parts or leads in artistic and independent-minded productions. She was top-billed opposite Glenda Jackson in “Mary, Queen of Scots” (1971) and earned an Oscar nod, but her subsequent appearances were seen by smaller and more select audiences. She was 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 played the tragic Andromache opposite Katharine Hepburn in the US-Greek production of “The Trojan Women” (1971). She returned to film in 1974 as one of the all-star suspects in Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” and 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 small but 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 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.” Her comments further exacerbated the anger of the Jewish Defense League, who had openly protested the Oscars over her nomination – as well as the 1977 documentary “The Palestinian,” which she had narrated and produced – and earned more than a few negative comments from the Hollywood community as well, most notably from screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who criticized her during his Oscar broadcast presentation.

Though the wins for “Julia” and “Playing Time” cemented critical opinion of Redgrave’s talents, the controversy that was spurred by her political stance had a chilling effect on her career. For much of the next decade, she was seen in films that either failed at the box office – “Agatha” (1979) – or had a limited audience. Many of these projects performed well in arthouse circles, most notably as a lesbian suffragette in “The Bostonians” (1984), which earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations; “Wetherby” (1985), which marked the directorial debut of playwright David Hare; and “Prick Up Your Ears” (1987), which 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 with a 1988 production of Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending,” which was filmed for broadcast on TNT in 1990. Still, there was stigma attached to Redgrave, as a 1984 lawsuit against the Boston Symphony Orchestra for canceling her performance as narrator of “Oedipus Rex” proved.

By the 1990s, however, Redgrave settled into a string of small but high profile roles in films. In “Howards End” (1993), she created controversy by bequeathing the title manor to middle class Emma Thompson, while in “Little Odessa” (1994), she was the seriously ill mother of 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) and 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 Corin also established the Moving Theater, which mounted a production of the long-lost Tennessee Williams play “Not About Nightingales” in 1998. She even found time to publish her autobiography in 1994.

By 2000 and beyond, Redgrave’s film career had settled into a regular pattern of supporting and lead roles in a wide variety of genres and styles. Turns in big budget productions like the campy TV miniseries “Bella Mafia” (1997) in which Redgrave was the female head of a mob family; the sci-fi disaster film “Deep Impact” (1998); and “Girl, Interrupted” (2000) were accompanied by stellar work in quieter fare like Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” (2001) and “A Rumor of Angels” (2000) with Ray Liotta. Redgrave’s 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.”

The year 2005 saw Redgrave appear as a recurring character in the second season the 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) with Peter O’Toole; “Evening” (2007) with Meryl Streep, Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Glenn Close, and daughter Natasha; and “Atonement” (2007) with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Theater also proved fruitful for Redgrave during this period; not only was she awarded the Ibsen Centennial Award in 2006 for her efforts in plays by the acclaimed author, but she was nominated for a Tony as author Joan Didion in the one-woman play “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2007).

Born:
Vanessa Redgrave on January 30, 1937 in London, England
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 her in 1994; starred on the London stage in Noel Coward's "Song at Twilight"
Daughter: Joely Richardson. Born Jan. 9, 1965; father, Tony Richardson; formerly married to producer Tim Bevan; played young incarnation of Vanessa's character in "Wetherby" (1985); appeared together on stage in "Lady Windermere's Fan" in 2002
Daughter: Natasha Richardson. Born May 13, 1963; father, Tony Richardson; formerly married to producer Robert Fox; married to Liam Neeson
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. Born in 1910; 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 March 8, 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; has son born c. 1990; 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, 1955-1957
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