Vanessa Redgrave

VANESSA REDGRAVE, called “the greatest actress of our time” by the playwright Tennessee Williams, came from a legendary theatrical family. Her father, Sir Michael Redgrave, was one of Britain’s most popular and respected actors. Her mother, Rachel Kempson, was a noted stage actress. Her sister, Lynn, is also a film and stage actress and her brother, Corin, was a successful stage director and actor.

Redgrave made her professional debut in the play A Touch of the Sun (1957), in which she co-starred with her father. Although she appeared in her first film, Behind the Mask, in 1958 she concentrated mostly on stage work throughout the 1950’s and early 1960’s. During the 1959 – 1960 season, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her film career began in earnest in 1966 and 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.) She then appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film, Blow-Up (1966.)

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 1960’s and early 1970’s Redgrave showed her mastery of both classical and commercial fare. In 1968 she appeared as Nina in Sidney Lumet’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Sea Gull and as dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora, for which she won a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, a second Prize for the Best Female Performance at the Cannes film festival, as well as a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination. In 1971 Redgrave took on the role of Andromache in The Trojan Woman and received another Oscar nomination for her work as the title character in Mary, Queen of the Scots. In 1977 she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Julia (1977.) During the following two decades, Redgrave eschewed popular, commercial films, for smaller films. In 1980 her controversial performance as a Nazi concentration camp victim in the television adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Playing for Time won her an Emmy. Redgrave received a sixth Oscar nomination in 1992 for her work as Mrs. Wilcox in Howard’s End.

Redgrave continued to garner accolades throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. In 2000 her performance as a lesbian grieving the loss of her longtime partner in the HBO series If These Walls Could Talk 2 earned her Golden Globe Award and Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Excellence in Media Award by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. In 2005, Redgrave joined the cast of the FX series Nip/Tuck, in which she portrays Dr. Erica Noughton, the mother of Julia McNamara played by Joely Richardson her real life daughter. In 2006, Redgrave starred opposite Peter O’Toole in the acclaimed film Venus and a year later in the acclaimed films Evening and Atonement, for which she garnered a Broadcast Film Critics Association award nomination for her performance despite it being only seven minutes.

Redgrave was recently seen in Gary Winick’s film Letters to Juliet.

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