Posted

in

by

Tags:


Born January 30, 1937 in London, England to acting giants Michael Redgrave (1908-1985) and Rachel Kempson (1910-2003), Vanessa Redgrave was the eldest of the couple’s three children which later included equally acclaimed actors Corin Redgrave (1939-2010) and Lynn Redgrave (1943-2010).

The young actress made her stage debut in London’s west end in 1958 opposite her brother Cori. That same year, she made her film debut co-starring with her father in Behind the Mask. Continuing to act in high profile roles on stage and TV, Redgrave married director Tony Richardson in 1962 with whom she had daughters Natasha Richardson (1963-2009) and Joely Richardson (born 1965) before resuming her film career.

1966 was a big year for Redgrave. She starred in both Morgan! and Blow-up and played a smiling Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Seasons. She was nominated for an Oscar for Morgan! while the same time, her sister Lynn was nominated for Georgy Girl, a role she turned down. After Richardson left her for Jeanne Moreau, she met Franco Nero on the set of 1967’s Camelot with whom she had a four-year relationship that included the birth of their son, Carlo in 1969.

Redgrave received a second Oscar nomination for 1968’s Isadora. In 1971 she began a long-term relationship with actor Timothy Dalton whom she met on the set of Mary, Queen of Scots for which she received her third Oscar nomination. The relationship lasted through 1986. In the interim, she won an Oscar for 1977’s Julia on her fourth nomination and an Emmy for 1980’s Playing for Time as well as a fifth Oscar nomination for 1984’s The Bostonians. Other films during this period included Murder on the Orient Express, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Agatha, Yanks and Wetherby.

The ever-busy actress received a New York Film critics Award for 1987’s Prick Up Your Ears and a sixth Oscar nomination for 1992’s Howards End. She reconnected with Franco Nero at daughter Natasha’s 1994 wedding to Liam Neeson. They would be directed by their son Carlo in the 1999 film, Uninvited and marry in 2006 after their son had married and given them two grandchildren. Redgrave’s film roles during this period varied between starring roles in the likes of A Month by the Lake and Mrs. Dalloway and smaller, but equally memorable parts in films such as Little Odessa and The Pledge. She received a second Emmy for 2000’s If These Walls Could Talk 2 and a Tony for 2003’s Long Day’s Journey into Night.

In a fourteen-month period from 2009-2010, she lost her daughter Natasha to a freak skiing accident and both of her younger siblings to cancer. She suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2015 and revealed that her lungs have only a 30% capacity because of decades of smoking.

Ever the trouper, Redgrave has given some of her finest performances in small but important roles in recent years in such films as Atonement, Letters to Juliet, Foxcatcher and Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. She currently has three films in post-production and one in pre-duction at the age of 81.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MORGAN! (1966), directed by Karel Reisz

Redgrave’s first Oscar nomination came as a bit of surprise. Although she was quite charming, her portrayal of David Warner’s ex-wife was secondary to Warner’s bravura portrayal of a gorilla obsessed nut case. The nomination was more for her versatility than her performance-in-itself. She had also starred in the year’s biggest arthouse success, Antonioni’s Blow-Up and was an enigmatic, if silent, Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Seasons. The real reason for her nomination, though, was that voters wanted to see her nominated alongside her sister Lynn who was the year’s breakout star in Georgy Girl.

CAMELOT (1967), directed by Joshua Logan

Redgrave certainly made a lovely, if undercooked, Guinevere opposite Richard Harris’ King Arthur in the film version of Lerner & Loewe’s beloved musical, but the odds were against her from the start. Her wan singing voice was simply not a credible replacement for Julie Andrews who turned down Jack Warner’s offer to repeat her legendary stage performance after Richard Burton had similarly refused to repeat Tony award-winning role as Arthur. The one consolation was the casting of Franco Nero who became her real-life Lancelot, the father of her son Carlo and nearly forty years later, her second husband.

JULIA (1977), directed by Fred Zinnemann

There was controversy surrounding vocal Palestinian supporter Redgrave’s Oscar nomination for playing the film’s title role as an anti-Fascist opposite Best Actress nominee Jane Fonda as writer Lillian Hellman. That controversy, however, was nothing compared to the ruckus she caused in her Oscar acceptance speech in which she railed against Zionist hoodlums. Her detractors were aghast when she was cast as real-life Nazi concentration camp survivor Fania Fenelon in TV’s Playing for Time two years later but once again she wowed them with a moving performance for which she won an Emmy as did Jane Alexander in support.

PRICK UP YOUR EARS (1987), directed by Stephen Frears

The critics went wild for her performance as playwright Joe Orton’s agent in Frears’ well-received film about Orton (Gary Oldman) and his relationship with Alfred Molina as Kenneth Halliwell, his roommate-lover who would become his killer. Redgrave earned Best Supporting Actress awards from the New York Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics and a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, but somehow managed to be left out of the year’s Oscar nominations. She did, however, receive her first BAFTA nomination since Morgan! .

LETTERS TO JULIET (2010), directed by Gary Winick

A homage to the adage that true love doesn’t have an expiration date, Redgrave plays an old lady who had long ago written an unanswered letter to Shakespeare’s heroine in the hope that her “secretaries” would find her long lost love. Fifty years later, American tourist Amanda Seyfried finds and answers the letter, embarking with Redgrave and her grandson (Gael Garcia Bernal) in search of that lover who is still alive in the person of Redgrave’s real-life Lancelot, Franco Nero. This was Redgrave’s loveliest performance in some time and earned her a Satellite Award nomination that sadly failed to translate into a seventh Oscar nod.

VANESSA REDGRAVE AND OSCAR

  • Morgan! (1966) – nominated – Best Actress
  • Isadora (1968) – nominated – Best Actress
  • Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) – nominated – Best Actress
  • Julia (1977) – Oscar – Best Supporting Actress
  • The Bostonians (1984) – nominated – Best Actress
  • Howards End (1992) – nominated – Best Supporting Actress

Verified by MonsterInsights