Vanessa Redgrave, Actress, - Biography
Actress,
Height 5ft 11in (1.80m)
born 30 January
1937, in London, England
Vanessa Redgrave is an Academy Award
winning English actress and member of the Redgrave family, one of the enduring
theatrical dynasties. She is also a social activist for human rights.
Vanessa
Redgrave was born to Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her siblings, Lynn Redgrave
and the equally outspoken Corin Redgrave, are also acclaimed actors. 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's
son Carlo Nero (né Carlo Sparanero), by her relationship with Italian actor
Franco Nero (né Francesco Sparanero), is a writer and film director. She
met Nero while filming Camelot in 1967. During the late 1970s and 1980s 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 theatre, playing opposite her father, in 1958.
Redgrave continues to work
regularly 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." 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.
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
Blowup; 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.
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),
led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, 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, noting neither she nor the Academy (who had received
death threats if she won) would 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 announced
to the audience, "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.
In 1978 Rabbi Meir Kahane published a book entitled Listen
Vanessa, I am a Zionist, which was later renamed Listen World, Listen Jew in direct
response to Redgrave's comments at the Academy Awards. To this day many right-wing
Jewish groups, such as the JDL, consider Redgrave a supporter of terrorism. The
JDL itself, however, has been described by the United States Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) in Congressional testimony as a "violent" and "extremist"
group. In a sidebar in its "Terrorism 2000/2001" report, the Bureau
notes, "The Jewish Defense League has been deemed a right-wing terrorist
group."
In June 2005 Redgrave was asked on Larry King Live: "Regardless
of distinctions about policy, do you support Israel's right to exist?" "Yes,
I do," she replied
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 transgendered people".
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 in 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 short-lived Marxist
Party in the 1990s. Since 2004 she has been a member of the Peace and Progress
Party.
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 - 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 support for
the Palestinian cause, even Fenelon objected to her casting. Redgrave was perplexed
by such hostility, stating 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)
Vanessa Redgrave and Akhmed
Zakayev
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--in which 128 hostages
lost their lives due to Russian special forces (OMON) action --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. 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.
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.
Redgrave
has been an outspoken critic of the "War on Terror" - the US and British
governments' response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.[8][9] 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."
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 -
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."
In June 2006 she was awarded a 'lifetime achievement' award
from the International Transylvanian Film Festival, one of whose sponsors is a
mining company named Gabriel Resources. She dedicated the award to a community
organisation from Rosia Montana, Romania, which is campaigning against a gold
mine that Gabriel Resources are seeking to build near the village. Gabriel Resources
placed an 'open letter' in The Guardian on 23 June 2006, attacking Redgrave, arguing
the case for the mine, and exhibiting support for it among the inhabitants: the
open letter is signed by 77 villagers.
"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."
"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."
"As a mother you
have got to have a view for now and a view for the 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.
Academy
Awards and Nominations
· 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 End
Filmography
· Running with Scissors (2006) ·
Venus (2006) · The Magic Snowman II (2006) (voice) · Cowboys for
Christ (2006) · The Thief Lord (2006) · The White Countess (2005)
· The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam (2005) · Short Order (2005)
· The Fever (2004) · Good Boy! (2003) (voice) · Merci Docteur
Rey (2002) · The Gathering Storm (2002) · Crime and Punishment (2002)
· Searching for Debra Winger (2002) · The Pledge (2001) ·
Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story (2000) (narrator) · A Rumor
of Angels (2000) · Mirka (2000) · The 3 Kings (2000) · Girl,
Interrupted (1999) · Uninvited (1999) · Cradle Will Rock (1999)
· Lulu on the Bridge (1998) · Deep Impact (1998) · Deja Vu
(1997) · Mrs. Dalloway (1997) · Wilde (1997) · Smilla's Sense
of Snow (1997) · Looking for Richard (1996) · Mission: Impossible
(1996) · A Month by the Lake (1995) · Little Odessa (1994) ·
Mother's Boys (1994) · Sparrow (1993) · Howards End (1991) ·
The House of the Spirits (1993) · A Wall of Silence (1993) · The
Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1991) · Behind the Mask (1991) · Breath
of Life (1990) · Stalin's Funeral (1990) · Romeo-Juliet (1990) (voice)
· Consuming Passions (1988) · Prick Up Your Ears (1987) ·
Comrades (1987) · Steaming (1985) · Wetherby (1985) · The
Bostonians (1984) · Sing Sing (1983) · Bear Island (1979) ·
Yanks (1979) · Agatha (1979) · Julia (1977) · The Seven-Per-Cent
Solution (1976) · Out of Season (1975) · Murder on the Orient Express
(1974) · The Trojan Women (1971) · Vacation (1971) · The
Devils (1971) · Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) · Drop-out (1970) ·
A Mother with Two Children Expecting Her Third (1970) · The Body (1970)
(narrator) · A Quiet Place in the Country (1969) · Oh! What a Lovely
War (1969) · Isadora (1968) · The Sea Gull (1968) · The Charge
of the Light Brigade (1968) · Camelot (1967) · Tonite Let's All
Make Love in London (1967) · The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967) ·
Red and Blue (1967) (short subject) · Blow Up (1966) · A Man for
All Seasons (1966) · Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) ·
Behind the Mask (1958)
Written in January 2007
Pictures of Vanessa Redgrave
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