Jump to content

Lynn Redgrave

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jodyleethomas (talk | contribs) at 03:49, 30 August 2010 (added </ref>). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Lynn Redgrave
Redgrave at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival
Born
Lynn Rachel Redgrave
OccupationActress
Years active1962–2009
SpouseJohn Clark (1967–2000)
Websitehttp://www.redgrave.com

Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE (8 March 1943 – 2 May 2010) was an English actress.

A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962. By the mid-1960s she had appeared in several films, including Tom Jones (1963), and Georgy Girl (1966) which won her a New York Film Critics Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.

In 1967, she made her Broadway debut, and performed in several stage productions in New York while making frequent returns to London's West End. She performed with her sister Vanessa in Three Sisters in London, and in the title role in a television production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1991. She made a return to films in the late 1990s in films such as Shine (1996) and Gods and Monsters (1998), for which she received another Academy Award nomination.

Early life and theatrical family

Main article: Redgrave family

Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, to actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her sister is actress Vanessa Redgrave; her brother was actor and political activist Corin Redgrave. She was the aunt of actor Carlo Gabriel Nero and actresses Joely Richardson, Jemma Redgrave and Natasha Richardson.

Career

After training in London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Redgrave made her professional debut in a 1962 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. Following a tour of Billy Liar and repertory work in Dundee, she made her West End debut at the Haymarket, in N.C. Hunter's The Tulip Tree with Celia Johnson and John Clements.

She was invited to join The National Theatre for its inaugural season at the Old Vic, working with such directors as Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli, and Noel Coward in roles such as Rose in The Recruiting Officer, Barblin in Andorra, Jackie in Hay Fever, Kattrin in Mother Courage, Miss Prue in Love for Love, and Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing which kept her busy for the next three years.

During that time she appeared in films such as Tom Jones (1963), Girl with Green Eyes (1964), The Deadly Affair (1966) and the title role in Georgy Girl (also 1966). For the last of these roles she gained the New York Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

In 1967 she made her Broadway debut in Black Comedy with Michael Crawford and Geraldine Page. London appearances included Michael Frayn's The Two of Us with Richard Briers at the Garrick, David Hare's Slag at the Royal Court, and Born Yesterday, directed by Tom Stoppard at Greenwich in 1973.

In 1974, she returned to Broadway in My Fat Friend. There soon followed Knock Knock with Charles Durning, Mrs Warren's Profession (for a Tony nomination) with Ruth Gordon, and Saint Joan. In the 1985/86 season she appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert, and Jeremy Brett in Aren't We All? and with Mary Tyler Moore in A. R. Gurney's Sweet Sue.

In 1983, she played Cleopatra in an American television version of Antony and Cleopatra opposite Timothy Dalton. She was in Misalliance in Chicago with Irene Worth, (earning the Sarah Siddons and Joseph Jefferson awards), Twelfth Night at the American Shakespeare Festival, California Suite, The King and I, Hellzapoppin', Les Dames du Jeudi, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and The Cherry Orchard. In 1988 she narrated a dramatised television documentary, Silent Mouse, which told the story of the creation of the Christmas carol Silent Night. In the early winter of 1991 she starred with Stewart Granger and Ricardo Montalban in a Hollywood production of Don Juan in Hell.

With her sister Vanessa as Olga, she returned to the London stage playing Masha in Three Sisters in 1991 at the Queen's Theatre, London, and later played the title role in a television production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, again with her sister. Highlights of her early film career also include The National Health, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, The Happy Hooker and Getting It Right. In the United States she was seen on such television series as Teachers Only, House Calls, Centennial and Chicken Soup.

She also starred in BBC productions such as The Faint-Hearted Feminist, A Woman Alone, Death of a Son, Calling the Shots and Fighting Back. She played Broadway again in Moon Over Buffalo (1996) with co-star Robert Goulet, and starred in the world premier of Tennessee Williams' The Notebook of Trigorin, based on Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. She won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Talking Heads.

Redgrave became well known in the United States after appearing in the television series House Calls, for which she received an Emmy nomination. She was fired from the show after she insisted on bringing her child to rehearsals so as to continue a breast-feeding schedule. A lawsuit ensued but was dismissed a few years after. Following that, she appeared in a long-running series of television commercials for H. J. Heinz Company, then the manufacturer of the weight loss foods for Weight Watchers, a Heinz subsidiary. Her signature line for the ads was "This Is Living". She wrote a book of her life experiences with the same title,[1] which included a selection of Weight Watcher recipes. The autobiographical section later became the basis of her one-woman play Shakespeare For My Father.

In 1993 she was elected President of The Players, the famous theatrical club and historic bastion of American theatre history. In 1989 she appeared on Broadway in Love Letters with her husband John Clark, and thereafter they performed the play around the country, and on one occasion for the jury in the O. J. Simpson case. In 1993 she appeared on Broadway in the one-woman play Shakespeare for My Father, which Clark produced and directed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

In 2005, Redgrave appeared at Quinnipiac University and Connecticut College in the play Sisters of the Garden, about the sisters Fanny and Rebekka Mendelssohn and Nadia and Lili Boulanger.[2] She was also reported to be writing a one-woman play about her battle with breast cancer and her 2003 mastectomy, based on her book Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer with photos by her daughter Annabel and text by Redgrave herself.[3]

In September 2006, she appeared in Nightingale, the U.S. premiere of her new one-woman play based upon her maternal grandmother Beatrice, at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. She also performed the play in May 2007 at Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut. On both occasions she earned excellent reviews but was forced to perform seated at a table rather than standing on stage due to unspecified health problems, which critics found distracting.[4] In 2007, she appeared in an episode of Desperate Housewives as Dahlia Hainsworth.

She most recently appeared on an episode of ABC's Ugly Betty.

Voice work

Redgrave narrated the audiobook Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio, and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library.

Personal life and death

On 2 April 1967, Lynn Redgrave married the English actor John Clark.[5] Together they had three children, airline pilot Benjamin Clark (born 1968), singer-songwriter Pema (originally Kelly) Clark (born 1970), and author and photographer Annabel Lucy Clark (born 1981).[6] In 1991, he confessed, he fathered a child, Zachary, with his then-assistant, Nicolette Hannah. Four years later, Hannah married Redgrave and Clark's son Benjamin, becoming the elder Clark's daughter-in-law. Redgrave's husband kept all this secret until Benjamin and Nicolette divorced in 1996. Becoming suspicious, Benjamin, a 30-year-old airline pilot, confronted his father, who eventually decided to come clean with his hopelessly soiled laundry. On March 1, after a few months of psychotherapy and spurred by a tell-all interview her husband gave to the National Enquirer, Redgrave, a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for Gods and Monsters, filed for divorce. "I've discovered a lifetime of betrayal from my husband," she tearfully told The Times of London. "It was right beneath my nose for eight years. I thought the child was my surrogate grandchild." [7] 

The divorce proceedings were acrimonious and became front page news, with Clark alleging that Redgrave had also been unfaithful.[8][9]

Lynn Redgrave was appointed OBE in 2001. She was a naturalised citizen of the United States.[10]

She discussed her health problems associated with bulimia and breast cancer. She was diagnosed with the latter in December 2002, had a mastectomy in January 2003, and chemotherapy.[11] She died from breast cancer[12] in her Kent, Connecticut home[13] on 2 May 2010, aged 67.[14] Her brother, actor Corin Redgrave, also a cancer patient, had died on 6 April 2010, aged 70.

Redgrave's funeral was held on 8 May at First Congregational Church in Kent, Connecticut. She was buried at Saint Peter's Episcopal Cemetery in Lithgow, New York; her mother Rachel Kempson and niece Natasha Richardson are also buried there.[15]

Filmography

Template:Filmography table begin |- |1963 |Tom Jones |Susan | |- |1964 |Girl with Green Eyes |Baba Brennan |Nominated — BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles |- |rowspan=2|1966 |Georgy Girl |Georgy |Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer - Female |- |The Deadly Affair |Virgin |(in "Edward II") |- |1967 |Smashing Time |Yvonne | |- |1969 |The Virgin Soldiers |Phillipa Raskin | |- |1970 |Last of the Mobile Hot Shots |Myrtle | |- |1971 |¡Viva la muerte... tua! |Mary O'Donnell | |- |rowspan=2|1972 |Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) |The Queen | |- |Every Little Crook and Nanny |Nanny | |- |1973 |The National Health |Nurse Sweet/Nurse Betty Martin | |- |1975 |The Happy Hooker |Xaviera Hollander | |- |1976 |The Big Bus |Camille Levy | |- |1978 |Centennial |Charlotte Buckland Seccombe (later Charlotte Lloyd) |Television miniseries |- |1979 | House Calls |Ann Anderson |Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy |- |1980 |Sunday Lovers |Lady Davina |(segment "An Englishman's Home") |- |1985 |The Bad Seed |Monica Breedlove | |- |1986 |Antony and Cleopatra |Cleopatra | |- |1987 |Morgan Stewart's Coming Home |Nancy Stewart | |- |rowspan=2|1989 |Midnight |Midnight | |- |Getting It Right |Joan | |- |1996 |Shine |Gillian |Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |- |1997 |Toothless |Rogers | |- |rowspan=3|1998 |Gods and Monsters |Hanna |Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female
London Critics Circle Film Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role |- |White Lies | |Nominated — Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series |- |Strike! |Miss McVane | |- |rowspan=2|1999 |Touched |Carrie | |- |The Annihilation of Fish |Poinsettia | |- |rowspan=5|2000 |Lion of Oz |The Wicked Witch of the East |(voice) |- |The Simian Line |Katharine | |- |The Next Best Thing |Helen Whittaker | |- |Deeply |Celia | |- |How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog |Edna | |- |rowspan=2|2001 |Venus and Mars |Emily Vogel | |- |My Kingdom |Mandy | |- |rowspan=5|2002 |Spider |Mrs. Wilkinson | |- |Unconditional Love |Nola Fox | |- |The Wild Thornberrys Movie |Cordelia Thornberry |(voice) |- |Hansel & Gretel |Woman/Witch | |- |Anita and Me |Mrs. Ormerod | |- |rowspan=2|2003 |Charlie's War |Grandma Lewis | |- |Peter Pan |Aunt Millicent | |- |2004 |Kinsey |Final Interview Subject | |- |2005 |The White Countess |Olga Belinskya | |- |2007 |The Jane Austen Book Club |Mama Sky | |- |rowspan=2|2009 |Confessions of a Shopaholic |Drunken Lady at Ball | |- |My Dog Tulip |Nancy |(voice) Template:Filmography table end

References

  1. ^ Redgrave, Lynn. This Is Living, Dutton, May 1991. ISBN 978-0879233334.
  2. ^ Eleanor Charles (27 Mar. 2005). "A Redgrave in Four Roles". New York Times. Retrieved 24 Apr. 2008. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  3. ^ http://www.bcrfcure.org/ab_10_redgrave.html
  4. ^ Nightingale review, "Lynn Redgrave’s less-than-completely-truthful memoir of women’s lives", Lucy Komisar November 20, 2009
  5. ^ "Lynn Redgrave Wed to John Clark". The New York Times Company. 3 April 1967. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
  6. ^ Daily Mail obituary: "Actress Lynn Redgrave dies at 67 after losing battle with breast cancer"
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ "Lynn Redgrave obituary". Telegraph Media Group Limited. 3 May 2010. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
  9. ^ "Lynn Redgrave obituary". Times Newspapers Limited. 4 May 2010. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
  10. ^ Lynn Redgrave Film Reference biography
  11. ^ MSN.com notice of Redgrave's death at age 67
  12. ^ Actress Lynn Redgrave dies at 67
  13. ^ Vanessa Redgrave says final goodbye to sister Lynn as family gathers for Connecticut funeral
  14. ^ AP report on Notice of Lynn Redgrave's death
  15. ^ Family, friends say goodbye to Redgrave CBC News 8 May 2010 Retrieved:8 May 2010.

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lynn_Redgrave&oldid=381818657"