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Vanessa Redgrave Biography

(1937 - )

Related Works

Films
1966 Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment
1966 Blow Up

1967 The Sailor from Gibraltar
1967 Camelot
1968 The Charge of the Light Brigade
1968 Isadora
1968 The Sea Gull
1971 The Devils
1971 Mary, Queen of Scots
1971 The Trojan Women
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1975 Out of Season
1976 The Seven Per Cent Solution
1977 Julia
1979 Agatha
1979 Bear Island
1979 Yanks
1984 The Bostonians
1985 Wetherby
1985 Steaming
1987 Comrades
1987 Prick Up Your Ears
1988 Consuming Passions
1991 The Ballad of the Sad Café
1992 Howard's End
1993 The House of the Spirits
1993 Wall of Silence
1994 Mother's Boys
1994 Little Odessa
1996 Mission Impossible
1997 Wilde
1998 Mrs Dalloway
1998 Celebrity
1999 Girl, Interrupted
1999 The Cradle Will Rock
2005 The White Countess
Television
1980 Playing for Time
1982 My Body, My Child
1985 Wetherby
1986 Three Sovereigns for Sarah
2002 The Gathering Storm

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(born January 30, 1937, London, England) British actress of stage and screen and longtime political activist.

Called “the greatest actress of our time” by the playwright Tennessee Williams, Vanessa Redgrave came from a legendary theatrical family. Her father, Sir Michael Redgrave, was one of Britain's most popular and respected actors, and her mother, Rachel Kempson, was a noted stage actress. Her sister, Lynn, did both stage and film work—most notably in Georgy Girl (1966) and Shine (1996)—and her brother, Corin, was a successful stage director and actor. Redgrave is also the mother of actresses Natasha and Joely Richardson from her marriage in the 1960s to director Tony Richardson.

Redgrave made her professional debut in the play A Touch of the Sun (1957), in which she costarred with her father. She appeared in her first film, Behind the Mask, in 1958 but concentrated mostly on stage work throughout the late '50s and early '60s and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon during the 1959–60 season. Her film career began in earnest in 1966; within the space of two years, she appeared in four films that established her reputation as an intelligent actress with a commanding presence. The first of her six Academy Award nominations was for Morgan! (1966), her first motion picture in eight years. She then had a role in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966), a psychological mystery that became a cult favourite. Redgrave's unbilled cameo as Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Seasons (1966) and her performance as Guinevere in Camelot (1967) further secured her status as one of the most popular and respected actresses of the era.

In the late 1960s and early '70s Redgrave showed her mastery of both classical and commercial fare. She received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora (1968), and she appeared as Nina in Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull (1968). In 1971 Redgrave took on the role of Andromache in The Trojan Women and received another Oscar nomination for her work as the title character in Mary, Queen of Scots, playing opposite Glenda Jackson's Queen Elizabeth I. Redgrave also appeared in such popular mainstream vehicles as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), and she won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance in Julia (1977).