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Vanessa Redgrave
| Biography |
Like Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave has for decades been one of the UK's finest actresses. And, also like them, she is still feted worldwide as she passes through middle-age, bringing to screen and TV roles an authority and gravitas that younger actresses simply cannot match. Only last year, she was awarded an Emmy for her part in If These Walls Could Talk 2. Still burning with energy and righteous anger, she continues to dedicate herself to the theatre and cinema, as well as the social causes for which she long fought - causes that have made her, alongside her American counterpart Jane Fonda, the most controversial actress of the modern era.
Vanessa's present status was prophesied on the day of her birth by no less a luminary than Sir Laurence Olivier. On January 30th, 1937, during the curtain call of a performance at London's Old Vic Theatre, he announced to the audience "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight a great actress has been born. Laertes has a daughter!" (Laertes being the character played that night by Vanessa's father, the renowned Michael Redgrave). It really wasn't such a wild guess on Olivier's part. Michael was already an esteemed member of the thespian establishment. His father, Roy, starred in many of the first silent films to come out of Australia, while his wife and Vanessa's mother was another famed performer, Rachel Kempson. Indeed, the Redgrave tradition would continue even beyond Vanessa. Vanessa's sister, Lynn, would be Oscar nominated, while her brother Corin would become a prime mover in British theatre. Beyond this, Vanessa's own children - Natasha and Joely Richardson - would become movie stars, as would her niece, Jemma Redgrave. |
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