Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave,
CBE (born
30 January,
1937) is an
Academy Award-winning British
actress and member of the
Redgrave family, one of the enduring theatrical dynasties. She is also a left-wing
social activist for
human rights (see [
1]).
Vanessa Redgrave was born in
London, England. Her parents were Sir
Michael Redgrave and
Rachel Kempson (Lady Redgrave). Her sister,
Lynn Redgrave, and her brother, the equally outspoken
Corin Redgrave, are also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave's daughters,
Natasha Richardson and
Joely Richardson (by her 1962-1967 marriage to film director
Tony Richardson) have also built respected acting careers. Redgrave also has a son,
Carlo Nero (né Carlo Sparanero), a writer and film director, by a relationship with Italian actor
Franco Nero (né Francesco Sparanero), whom she met while filming
Camelot in 1967. During the late 1970s and '80s she had a long-term relationship with actor
Timothy Dalton.
Vanessa Redgrave entered the
Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954. She first appeared in the
West End, playing opposite her father, in 1958.
Redgrave continues to regularly work in the theatre. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Play" for her performance in the Broadway revival of
Eugene O'Neill's
Long Day's Journey Into Night. In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her "outstanding work in interpreting many of
Henrik Ibsen's works over the last decades" (see[
2]). Previous recipients of the award include
Liv Ullmann,
Glenda Jackson, and
Claire Bloom.
Redgrave will play
Joan Didion in Didion's upcoming New York stage adaptation of her recent book,
The Year of Magical Thinking (see[
3]).
Early Film Career
Highlights of Vanessa Redgrave's early film career include her first starring role in
Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (for which she earned an Oscar nomination, a Cannes award, a Golden Globe nomination and a BAFTA Film Award); her portrayal of the cool London swinger, Jane, in 1966's
Blow Up, her spirited portrayal of dancer
Isadora Duncan in
Isadora (for which she won a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, along with a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination in 1969); and various portrayals of historical figures - ranging from Andromache in
The Trojan Women, to
Mary of Scotland in
Mary, Queen of Scots.
Julia
In 1977, Redgrave funded and narrated a documentary film on the plight of the Palestinian people. That same year she starred in the film
Julia, about a woman murdered by the Nazi regime in the years prior to World War II for her anti-Fascist activism. Her co-star in the film was
Jane Fonda who, in her 2005 autobiography, noted that "there is a quality about Vanessa that makes me feel as if she resides in a netherworld of mystery that eludes the rest of us mortals. Her voice seems to come from some deep place that knows all suffering and all secrets. Watching her work is like seeing through layers of glass, each layer painted in mythic watercolor images, layer after layer, until it becomes dark - but even then you know you haven't come to the bottom of it . . . The only other time I had experienced this with an actor was with
Marlon Brando . . . Like Vanessa, he always seemed to be in another reality, working off some secret, magnetic, inner rhythm."
Redgrave's performance in
Julia garnered an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. However, members of the
Jewish Defense League (JDL), chose to picket the awards ceremony in the spring of 1978 to protest against both Redgrave and her support of the Palestinian cause.
Aware of the JDL's presence outside, Redgrave, in her
acceptance speech, denounced all forms of totalitarianism, and noted that she would not be intimidated by "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature to Jews all over the world." Her statement was greeted by both applause and boos from the audience.
Later in the broadcast veteran screenwriter and Oscar presenter
Paddy Chayefsky told the audience members that "there's a little matter I'd like to tidy up…at least if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning. I would like to say that I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own personal propaganda. I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple ‘Thank you' would have sufficed." He received thunderous applause.
Later Film Career
Later film roles of note include those of suffragette Olive Chancellor in
The Bostonians (1984, a fourth Best Actress
Academy Award nomination), transsexual
Renee Richards in
Second Serve (1986); Mrs. Wilcox in
Howards End (1992, her sixth Academy Award nomination, this time in a supporting role); crime boss Max in
Mission: Impossible (1996, when discussing the role of Max, DePalma and Cruise thought it would be fun to cast an actor like Redgrave, luckily they decided to go with the real thing); Oscar Wilde's mother in
Wilde (1997); Clarissa Dalloway in
Mrs. Dalloway (1997); and Dr. Wick in
Girl, Interrupted (1999). Many of these roles and others, garnered various accolades for Redgrave.
Her performance as a lesbian grieving the loss of her longtime partner in the
HBO series
If These Walls Could Talk 2 earned her a
Golden Globe for "Best TV Series Supporting Actress" in 2000. This same performance also led to an "Excellence in Media Award" by the
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The award honors "a member of the entertainment community who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people" (see [
4]).
Since the 1960s Redgrave has supported a range of human rights causes, including
opposition to the Vietnam War, nuclear disarmament, independence for northern Ireland, freedom for Soviet Jews (she was awarded the
Sakharov medal by Sakharov's widow,
Yelena Bonner in 1993 for her efforts), and aid for Bosnian Muslims and other victims of war. She serves as a
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and was a co-founding member of Artists Against Racism.
Redgrave identifies as a
socialist, but her opposition to Soviet oppression led her, early in her career, to join the anti-Stalinist
Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK) (WRP), on whose ticket she twice ran for Parliament. Redgrave's
Trotskyist political views have been a cause of controversy for some, as has her membership with the WRP. She remained loyal to WRP founder
Gerry Healy when he was expelled from the WRP in the mid-1980s. She and other Healy loyalists founded the
Marxist Party in the 1990s.
In 1980 Redgrave made her first American TV debut as concentration-camp survivor
Fania Fénelon in the
Arthur Miller-scripted TV movie
Playing for Time â€" a part for which she won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in 1981. The decision to cast Redgrave as Fenelon was, however, a source of controversy for some Jewish individuals and organizations. In light of Redgrave's outspoken support for the Palestinian people, even Fenelon objected to her casting. Such hostility perplexed Redgrave, who shared in her 1991 autobiography her long-held belief that "the struggle against anti-Semitism and for the self-determination of the Palestinians form a single whole." (p. 306)
In December 2002 Redgrave paid £50,000 bail for
Chechen separatist Deputy Premier and special envoy
Akhmed Zakayev, who had sought political asylum in the United Kingdom and was accused by the Russian government of aiding and abetting hostage-takings in the
Moscow Hostage Crisis of 2002, and
guerrilla warfare against Russia.
At a press conference Redgrave said she feared for the life of Zakayev if he were to be extradited to Russia on terrorism charges. He would "die of a heart attack" or some other mysterious explanation which would be offered by Russia, she said (see [
5]). On
13 November,
2003, a London court rejected the Russian government's request for Zakayev's extradition. Instead, the court accepted a plea by lawyers for Mr Zakayev that he would not get a fair trial - and could even face torture - in Russia. "It would be unjust and oppressive to return Mr Zakayev to Russia," Judge Timothy Workman ruled (see [
6]).
In 2004, Vanessa Redgrave and her brother
Corin Redgrave announced the launch of the
Peace and Progress Party which would campaign against the
Iraq War and for
human rights. The party only ran a handful of candidates and called for votes for candidates from other parties who supported their agenda, mainly the
Liberal Democrats but also even individual
Tories who claimed to support human rights. The aim of this tactic was to attempt to maximize the possibility of defeat for the
Labour Party at the
2005 general election.
Redgrave has been an outspoken critic of the "War on Terror" - the US and British governments' response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (see [
7],[
8]). During a June 2005 interview on
Larry King Live, Redgrave was challenged on this criticism and on her "far left" political views. In response she questioned if there can be true democracy if the political leadership of the United States and Britain doesn't "uphold the values for which my father's generation fought the Nazis, [and] millions of people gave their lives against the Soviet Union's regime. [Such sacrifice was made] because of democracy and what democracy meant: no torture, no camps, no detention forever or without trial...[Such] techniques are not just alleged [against the governments of the U.S. and Britain], they have actually been written about by the FBI. I don't think it's being 'far left'...to uphold the rule of law" (see [
9]).
In March 2006, Redgrave remarked in an interview with US broadcast journalist
Amy Goodman, that "I don't know of a single government that actually abides by international human rights law, not one, including my own. In fact, [they] violate these laws in the most despicable and obscene way, I would say."
Goodman's interview of Redgrave took place in the actress's West London home on the evening of 7 March, and covered a range of subjects â€" though in particular, the cancellation of the
Alan Rickman production,
My Name is Rachel Corrie, by the New York Theater Workshop. Such a development, said Redgrave, was an "act of catastrophic cowardice" as "the essence of life and the essence of theater is to communicate about lives, either lives that have ended or lives that are still alive, [and about] beliefs, and what is in those beliefs" (see [
10]).
"I've come to see through the course of my life that people understand what I've tried to do, however inadequately I do it. I've just found people have come to understand me and be glad that I tried to do what I tried to do. And I do feel very inadequate about it, but I feel I must try . . . I think that any citizen can understand that you must raise your voice and do the best you can to speak out" (see [
11]).
"I've been to Sarajevo a few times and have gotten to know a lot of people there who put on plays during the siege. I wanted to share in that because I knew it was important to them . . . I began to see something of what was going on there in terms of actually keeping up people's spirit to resist - the resistance that causes change - even in the worst imaginable circumstances. And I realized that it paralleled the same spirit that existed during the Holocaust and in the gulag. Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living. That experience changed me, because I realized that if, as actors or writers or directors or designers, we can keep the will to resist alive in as many people as possible, then that's what we are about, and that's what we can do. It's more and more important because of the terrible things that are happening in our cities and the political and economic agendas that various governments have" (see [
12]).
"As a mother you have got to have a view for now and a view for the future" (see [
13]).
On 24 June 2006 an open letter was published in the
Guardian newspaper; this letter came from a small
Romanian village whose inhabitants were protesting at the fact Vanessa delivered a speech calling for a halt to the proposed construction of a mining operation for the village. Vanessa believed this would damage their environment; however the letter stated that the village was in extreme poverty and needed the mine to go ahead for the village to have an economically viable future.
Theatre
*1985 -
Evening Standard Award for best actress, for
The Seagull*2003 -
Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Play" for
Long Day's Journey Into Night.
*2006 -
Ibsen Centennial Award for her "outstanding work in interpreting many of
Henrik Ibsen's works over the last decades.
*1966 - Nominated -
Best Actress in a Leading Role -
Morgan! *1968 - Nominated - Best Actress in a Leading Role -
Isadora *1971 - Nominated - Best Actress in a Leading Role -
Mary, Queen of Scots *1977 - Won -
Best Actress in a Supporting Role -
Julia
*1984 - Nominated - Best Actress in a Leading Role -
The Bostonians *1992 - Nominated - Best Actress in a Supporting Role -
Howards EndBehind the Mask (
1958)
Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (
1966)
A Man for All Seasons (
1966)
Blow Up (
1966, by
Michelangelo Antonioni)
Red and Blue (
1967) (short subject)
The Sailor from Gibraltar (
1967)
Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (
1967) (documentary)
Camelot (
1967)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (
1968)
The Sea Gull (
1968)
Isadora (
1968)
Oh! What a Lovely War (
1969)
A Quiet Place in the Country (
1969)
The Body (
1970) (documentary) (narrator)
A Mother with Two Children Expecting Her Third (
1970) (short subject)
Drop-out (
1970)
Mary, Queen of Scots (
1971)
The Devils (
1971, by
Ken Russell)
Vacation (
1971)
The Trojan Women (
1971)
Murder on the Orient Express (
1974)
Out of Season (
1975)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (
1976)
Julia (
1977, by
Fred Zinnemann)
Agatha (
1979)
Yanks (
1979, by
John Schlesinger)
Bear Island (
1979)
Sing Sing (
1983)
The Bostonians (
1984,
Merchant Ivory Film)
Wetherby (
1985)
Steaming (
1985, by
Joseph Losey)
Comrades (
1987)
Prick Up Your Ears (
1987, by
Stephen Frears)
Consuming Passions (
1988)
Romeo-Juliet (
1990) (voice)
Stalin's Funeral (
1990)
Breath of Life (
1990)
Behind the Mask (
1991) (documentary)
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (
1991,
Merchant Ivory Film)
Howards End (
1991,
Merchant Ivory Film)
A Wall of Silence (
1993)
The House of the Spirits (
1993)
Sparrow (
1993, by
Franco Zeffirelli)
Mother's Boys (
1994)
Little Odessa (
1994)
A Month by the Lake (
1995)
Mission: Impossible (
1996)
Looking for Richard (
1996) (documentary)
Smilla's Sense of Snow (
1997)
Wilde (
1997)
Mrs. Dalloway (
1997)
Deja Vu (
1997, by
Henry Jaglom)
Deep Impact (
1998)
Lulu on the Bridge (
1998)
Cradle Will Rock (
1999)
Uninvited (
1999)
Girl, Interrupted (
1999)
The 3 Kings (
2000)
Mirka (
2000)
A Rumor of Angels (
2000)
Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story (
2000) (documentary) (narrator)
The Pledge (
2001)
Searching for Debra Winger (
2002) (documentary)
Crime and Punishment (
2002)
Merci Docteur Rey (
2002,
Merchant Ivory Film)
Good Boy! (
2003) (voice)
The Fever (
2004)
Short Order (
2005)
The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam (
2005)
The White Countess (
2005,
Merchant Ivory Film)
Thief Lord (
2006)Upcoming:
Running with Scissors (
2006)
Venus (
2006)
The Magic Snowman II (
2006) (voice)
Cowboys for Christ (
2006)
*
* [
14] Vanessa Redgrave: Actress and Campaigner
* [
15] Mission Impossible: An Interview with Vanessa Redgrave
* [
16] Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Vanessa Redgrave
* [
17] "She's Got Issues" -
The Observer, 19 March, 2006
* [
18] Vanessa Redgrave's Mrs. Dalloway: Revolutionary or Recluse?
* [
19] Peace and Progress Party
* [
20] Idol Chatter: Vanessa Redgrave
