Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson,
CBE, (born
9 May,
1936) is a two-time
Academy Award-winning
British actress and
politician, currently
Labour Member of Parliament for the constituency of
Hampstead and Highgate in the
London Borough of Camden.
She was born in
Birkenhead, across the
River Mersey from
Liverpool, into a working-class family, and it is a well-known piece of trivia that she once worked in a
Boots pharmacy store.
She has one son by her ex-husband, Roy Hodges.
Having studied acting at
RADA, Jackson made her professional stage debut in
Terence Rattigan's
Separate Tables in 1957, and her film debut in
This Sporting Life in
1963.
Fame came with Jackson's starring role in the controversial
Women in Love (1969) gaining her first
Oscar from
Hollywood's
Academy Awards, and another controversial role as Tchaikovsky's nymphomaniac wife in
Ken Russell's
The Music Lovers added to her image of being prepared to do almost anything for her art. She confirmed this by having her head shaved in order to play Queen
Elizabeth I of England in the
BBC's
1971 blockbuster serial,
Elizabeth R. In this year, she also appeared in a
BBC Morecambe and Wise Show, playing
Cleopatra in a comedy sketch which is generally recognised as one the funniest sequences in British TV history.
Filmmaker
Melvin Frank watched this and saw her comedic potential and offered her the lead female role in his next project. She earned a second
Oscar for this particular comic role in
A Touch of Class (
1973), and
Eric and Ernie apparently sent her a telegram saying: 'Stick with us kid, and we'll get you a third!'. She also portrayed Queen Elizabeth on a film about the life of
Mary, Queen of Scots and she has been recognised as one of Britain's leading actresses. In 1978, she was made a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Until recently, a theatre & arts academy in Borough Road, Birkenhead was named after her; this which has since been demolished by Wirral Council and replaced with trendy flats.
She retired from acting in order to enter the
House of Commons in the
United Kingdom general election, 1992 as the Labour MP for the
Hampstead & Highgate. After the
United Kingdom general election, 1997, she was appointed a junior minister in the
government of
British Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, with responsibility for
London Transport, a post she resigned before an attempt to be nominated as the
Labour Party candidate for the election of the first
Mayor of London in 2000. The nomination was eventually won by
Frank Dobson, who lost the election to
Ken Livingstone, the independent candidate. In the
United Kingdom general election, 2005, she received 14,615 votes, representing 38.29% of the votes cast in the
constituency.
As a high profile backbencher she has become a regular critic of Blair over his plans to introduce
top-up fees. She also called for him to resign following the Judicial Enquiry by
Lord Hutton in
2003 surrounding the reasons for going to war in
Iraq and the death of government adviser Dr.
David Kelly. Jackson is generally considered to be a traditional left-winger, often disagreeing with the dominant
Blairite governing centre-right faction in the
Labour Party.
By October 2005, her problems with Blair's leadership swelled to a point where she threatened to challenge the Prime Minister as a
stalking horse candidate in a leadership contest if he does not stand down within a reasonable amount of time. Jackson is also seen as a possible dark horse contender to succeed
Tony Blair when he leaves office.
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Guardian Unlimited Politics â€" Ask Aristotle: Glenda Jackson*
TheyWorkForYou.com â€" Glenda Jackson
