British Actors Archives - Page 60 of 131

Linden Travers

Brief Ecstasy, poster, (aka DANGEROUS SECRETS), top from left: Paul Lukas, Linden Travers; bottom: Hugh Williams, 1937. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Linden Travers was a very attractive actress in British movies of the 1930’s and 40’s. She was the older sister of actor Bill Travers. She is particularly remembered for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” in 1938 and then ten years later in “No Orchids for Miss Blandish” opposite George Raft. She died in Cornwall in 2001. She was the mother of actress Susan Travers.

Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:

Among the many questions film-goers ask themselves while watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1939), the penultimate film of the director’s British period, is what on earth the exquisite brunette Mrs Todhunter sees in the pompous and pusillanimous Mr Todhunter (portrayed by portly Cecil Parker).

So passionate and sympathetic is the lovely Linden Travers, who has died aged 88, that we can only be pleased for her when Todhunter is shot by the Nazis as he tries to make a run for it. Travers’ performance in the Hitchcock picture, the best and most famous of her films, makes one wonder why she was not, at least, the equal of Margaret Lockwood, another “wicked lady” of British cinema. Perhaps she was a victim of the timidity of the British film industry in the 1930s and 40s.

The Lady Vanishes was Travers’ 10th feature, but her own favourite was No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1948), in which she played the title role, repeating her stage performance of six years earlier in London. The British film, directed by St John L Clowes, based on the James Hadley Chase shocker, was considered such strong stuff – “the most sickening exhibition of brutality, perversion, sex and sadism ever to be shown on a cinema screen,” screamed the Monthly Film Bulletin – that it was banned in England for many years. Despite most of the British cast struggling to convince as New York gangsters using unspeakable dialogue, Travers, as the sensual kidnapped heiress who falls for her psychotic captor, emerged with some credit.

She was born Florence Lindon Travers in Durham, and showed her talents at an early age. While still a pupil at the Convent de la Sagesse, she was engaged to teach younger classmates elocution, drama, painting and sketching. Her first professional stage appearances were in repertory at the Playhouse, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1933.

The following year, she played the ingénue lead in Ivor Novello’s Murder In Mayfair, at the Globe in London. There, she met her future first husband, Guy Leon, whose sister was in the cast. (Their daughter, Jennifer Susan, was born in 1939.) Travers was soon alternating between stage and screen, and between femme fatale roles and light comedies.

Carol Reed cast her in small, but sexy, parts in Bank Holiday (1938) and The Stars Look Down (1939), both starring Margaret Lockwood. Then, “I seem to have jumped out of being mistresses to playing with the comics,” she recalled later. She was an effective foil to Tommy Trinder in Almost A Honeymoon (1938), was withering towards Arthur Askey in The Ghost Train (1941) and was George Formby’s inamorata in South American George (1941).

In the latter, she is a press agent who talks posh, like all Formby’s leading ladies, though she drops into Lancashire dialect once or twice, much to George’s delight.

Travers again played second fiddle to Margaret Lockwood in Jassy (1947), and was Augusta Leigh, one of the many female witnesses in The Bad Lord Byron (1949) accusing poet Dennis Price of caddishness. Her last feature was Christopher Columbus (1949), in which she is chased around the Spanish court by King Ferdinand.

After her second marriage to James Holman in 1948, and the birth of their daughter, Sally Linden, the following year, Travers limited herself to occasional television appearances, allowing her much younger brother, Bill Travers, to continue the family acting tradition. She had, however, always continued painting and, with her sisters, Alice and Pearl, opened the Travers Art Gallery in Kensington in 1969.

In 1974, after her husband died of a heart attack, Travers spent some years travelling, before settling down to paint in St Ives, in Cornwall. She also studied psychotherapy, and qualified as a hypnotist. In the 1990s, she appeared at a showing of The Lady Vanishes at the National Film Theatre, and was seen in a BBC tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, instantly recognisable as the shamefully underused star of British pictures.

She is survived by her two daughters, her brother Ken and her sister-in-law, Virginia McKenna.

· Florence Lindon ‘Linden’ Travers, actor, born May 27 1913; died October 23 2001

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Benedict Taylor was born in 1960 in London. He is the eldest of six children. He lived in Nigeria for the first few years of his life. He made his debut in “The Turn of the Screw” on television in 1974. His movies include “The Watcher in the Woods” with Bette Davis and Carroll Baker, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” with Tom Hanks and “Monk Dawson” with John Michie.

Jeremy Northam was born in 1961 in Cambridge. He made his U.S. movie debut opposite

Sandra Bullock in “The Net”. His other films include “Carrington” and “Gosford Park” where he played ‘Ivor Novello’.

TCM overview:

Tall and slender with dark good looks and a rich, plummy voice, Jeremy Northam was already established as a stage and television performer in his native Britain when he landed his breakthrough screen role as the suavely seductive villain stalking Sandra Bullock in the cyber thriller “The Net” (1995). The son of a professor and a potter, he spent his formative years in Bristol and Cambridge. After completing his college education, Northam enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but left before completing the three-year program when he began landing TV roles like the soldier in the WWI drama “Journey’s End” (1988). The following year, the limelight shone on him briefly when he understudied and then replaced Daniel Day-Lewis in the National Theatre production of “Hamlet”. Additional stage roles followed, including an award-winning turn in “The Voysey Inheritance” and a supporting role in “The Gift of the Gorgon” (1992), starring married couple Judi Dench and Michael Williams as well as additional work at the Royal Shakespeare Festival. As his stage presence increased, Northam lent his presence to other small screen roles before landing his first major feature role, as Hindley Earnshaw in the uneven remake of “Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights” (1992). That film met with a derisive critical reaction in England and was relegated to TV in America (it aired on TNT in 1994).

After his strong performance in “The Net”, Northam seemed on the verge of being typecast as cads when he portrayed Beacus Penrose who beds and abandons the titular artist played by Emma Thompson in the biopic “Carrington” (1995). Switching gears, however, he excelled in the real-life role of a man with dual personalities, the reclusive composer Peter Warlock and his bete noir, the dyspeptic music critic Philip Heseltine in “Voices/Voices From a Locked Room” (also 1995). Further demonstrating his range, Northam cut a dashing romantic figure as Mr. Knightly to Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Emma” (1996) before stumbling a bit in both “Mimic” (1997), as a scientist, and Sidney Lumet’s remake of “Gloria” (1999), as a gangster. While his onscreen roles offered little challenges to the actor, he found success as a buttoned-up real estate agent who falls in with some free spirits in the British telefilm “The Tribe” (1998) and in his return to the London stage playing a gay obstetrician in “Certain Young Men” (1999). In fact, 1999 would prove to be a key year for the actor, with high profile, critically-praised performances in three films. The Sundance favorite “Happy, Texas” cast him opposite Steve Zahn as a pair of escaped convicts who seek refuge in the titular town where they are mistaken for a gay couple. In David Mamet’s remake of “The Winslow Boy”, Northam anchored the film as the wily barrister defending the boy accused of theft who also harbored unexpressed romantic yearnings for the Winslow daughter (Rebecca Pidgeon). Rounding out the trio of movies was Oliver Parker’s period adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”, with the actor as a married politician who is haunted by a youthful indiscretion. Continuing to corner the market in period films, Northam joined the cast of the Merchant Ivory production “The Golden Bowl” (2000), playing an Italian prince. He followed up with a fine turn as actor-composer Ivor Novello in the Robert Altman-directed period mystery “Gosford Park” (2001) and as an 19th-century poet in Neil LaBute’s adapation of A S Byatt’s novel “Possession” (2002). After a much discussed stint playing Dean Martin opposite Sean Hayes as Jerry Lewis in the CBS biopic “Martin & Lewis” (2002) in which Northam ably captured the singer-actor’s suave charisma if not his naughty-boy appeal, Notham appeared in the Mel Gibson-produced adaptation of “The Singing Detective” (2003) and played a French army officer hounding Michael Caine in “The Statement” (2003). He next played Walter Hagen in the biopic “Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius” (2004), which told the story of the iconic golf champion (Jim Caviezel) who quit the sport on top at age 28.

The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.

Paul Nicholls was born in 1979 in Bolton, Lancashire. His movies include “The Trench”, “The Clandestine Bridge. He was seen in “Law & Order UK up to this year.

IMDB entry:

Born to a roofer and a psychiatric nurse, Paul was born on April 12, 1979, joining his sister, Kelly who was born in 1978. Paul started acting at an early age of 10, when he joined the Oldham Theatre Workshop, but had acted before that at Church Road Primary School, Bolton and then Smithhills Dean High School. Still at the age of 10, Paul had his first television role, in “Childrens Ward” on ITV, though only saying 3 lines.

Later, he started appearing in TV shows like The Biz (1995) and became UK teenage girls’ favourite pin-up when he joined the EastEnders (1985) cast as Joe Wicks. 12 record companies have reportedly offered Paul the opportunity to record a single but they have all been turned down. Paul has publicly stated that he will never record a single, adding that his cat, Gizmo, is better at singing than him.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Cezzie

David Tennant was born in 1971 in West Lothian, Scotland. He is best known for his performance as “Dr Who”. He also played ‘Barty Crouch Jnr’ in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” in 2005. His other movies include “The Decoy Bride”.

TCM overview:

To much of the world’s television viewing audience, David Tennant was the tenth and arguably most popular incarnation of England’s iconic science fiction hero “Doctor Who” (BBC One 1963-1989, 2005- ), who took audiences by storm with the venerable science fiction television series’ revival in 2005. But the Scottish actor’s c.v. also included a lengthy, award-winning string of performances in classical and modern theater as well as numerous turns in British television dramas and comedies. But it was his vigorous and frequently amusing turn as the Doctor that not only restored much of the charm and appeal of the long-running series, which had been mothballed for nearly two decades prior to 2005, but also vaulted him to international fame. Unlike many of the other actors who played the Doctor during its five decade run, Tennant was successful in finding substantive work outside of the show, including appearances in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005) and such highly praised small screen efforts as “Recovery” (BBC One 2007) and “Broadchurch” (ITV 2013- ).

Born David John McDonald on April 18, 1971 in the Scottish town of Bathgate, David Tennant was the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Alexander McDonald, and Essdale Helen McLeod, whose father, Archibald McLeod, was a champion footballer for Scotland in the 1930s. His fascination for acting developed at a very early age and was inspired in part by “Doctor Who,” of which he was a devoted fan. Tennant began acting in school productions during his time in primary and secondary schools, and soon added Saturday classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama to his training. He was admitted to the Academy at the age of 16, the same year he made his screen debut in an anti-smoking film produced by the Glasgow Health Board. At his time, he adopted the stage name of “David Tennant,” inspired by Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant, because an actor named David McDonald was already registered with the Equity union. He graduated from the Academy with a Bachelor of Arts in acting and landed his first professional role in a production of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” for the agitprop 7:84 Theatre Company. Roles on television soon followed, most notably his 1993 turn as a transsexual barmaid well loved by the patrons of her pub on the comedy “Rab C. Nesbitt” (BBC Two 1988-1999, 2008- ). The following year, Tennant earned his breakthrough role as a young bipolar patient/DJ at a hospital radio station on “Takin’ Over the Asylum” (BBC Scotland 1994).

A critically acclaimed appearance in a 1995 production of Joe Orton’s “What the Butler Saw” at the Royal National Theater in London underscored Tennant’s growing reputation as a stage star on the rise, which he soon cemented by joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1996. By 2003, he had netted Olivier and Ian Charleson Award nominations for performances in “The Comedy of Errors” and Kenneth Lonergan’s “Lobby Hero,” which translated into regular work as a guest star on episodic television. These efforts included appearances on the revived “Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)” (BBC One 2000-2001) and the well-praised television version of “People Like Us (BBC Two 1999-2000). In 2004 and 2005, Tennant received critical praise for his comic performances in the BBC’s adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s “He Knew He Was Right” (2004) and the musical series “Blackpool” (BBC One 2004), as well as supporting turns in more dramatic fare like the live broadcast of “The Quatermass Experiment” (BBC Four 2005) and in “Casanova” (BBC Three 2005) as the legendary lover in his younger days. The last production was written by Russell T. Davies, who cast Tennant as the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord in his revival of “Doctor Who” that same year.

Tennant replaced Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor in the second season of the new “Doctor Who” and quickly became one of the most popular actors to personify the role in the course of its five-decade history. His Doctor combined the whimsy and eccentricity of Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor with flashes of the steely reserve seen in Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor, but was also shot through with streaks of loneliness and romantic longing that made him positively Byronic at times. Tennant was also a devotee of the series, which imbued both his performance and his promotional appearances outside the show with an infective enthusiasm that won him numerous fans. He participated in numerous related and spin-off projects, from audio plays by Big Finish Productions to the BBC’s charity holiday specials and “The Sarah Jane Adventures” (CBBC 2007-2011), which starred former Baker companion Elisabeth Sladen reprising her turn as the intrepid Sarah Jane Smith. For his performances on “Doctor Who,” Tennant won three National Television Awards and a BAFTA Cyrmu (BAFTA in Wales), but more importantly, his performance was crucial in reviving a moribund franchise and making it relevant to modern audiences. Fans would later name him the best Doctor in the history of the series by its official house organ, Doctor Who Magazine.

While appearing as the Doctor, Tennant also remained busy with numerous other projects, most notably as the villainous Barty Crouch, Jr. in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005) and a 2005 production of “Look Back in Anger.” In 2008, he won rave reviews for his performance as Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was subsequently filmed as a BBC Two production the following year; his work as a charming psychopath in “Secret Smile” (ITV 2005) and as a brain injury victim in “Recovery,” also drew critical acclaim. These, along with turns in numerous episodic television series, promotional appearances, recordings for audio books and radio plays and even television advertisements, made Tennant one of the busiest and most in-demand performers in the United Kingdom between 2005 and 2009. At the end of that four-year period, Tennant decided to part ways with the Doctor with a quartet of four special episodes, culminating in “The End of Time” (BBC One 2010), which was seen by over 10 million viewers. While his final episodes aired, Tennant filmed a pilot for an American series, “Rex is Not Your Lawyer” (NBC 2009), about a panic-stricken Chicago lawyer who coached his clients while representing themselves. Though it received considerable media attention, the pilot was not picked up for broadcast.

Tennant worked steadily in the post-Doctor years, picking up a Best Actor nomination from the Royal Television Society Programme Awards as a photographer raising five children after the death of his partner in “Single Father” (BBC One 2010) while enjoying critical praise for appearances in “United” (BBC Two 2011) and the semi-improvised “True Love” (BBC One 2012). His fame as the Doctor won him opportunities in the States, but these efforts, including a remake of the 1985 horror film “Fright Night” (2012) and an audition to play Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s “Hannibal” (2013- ), received either a lukewarm response or failed to come to fruition, save for his spirited vocal performance as Charles Darwin in the Aardman Animation film “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” (2012). The U.K. remained his most diverse showcase, as evidenced by his antagonistic police detective hunting a child murderer in “Broadchurch” and his gifted barrister in “The Escape Artist” (BBC One 2013). That same year, two different factors of Tennant’s vast fan base were thrilled to hear that 2013 would not only see the actor reprise the Doctor for “The Day of the Doctor” (BBC One, 2013), a 75-minute special celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who” by teaming the Tenth Doctor with his successor, Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith, but also a return to the Royal Shakespeare Company in a production of “Richard II.” In 2014, Tennant made his debut on American TV by starring in “Gracepoint” (Fox 2014), a limited-run American adaptation of “Broadchurch,” which had garnered both strong ratings and solid reviews when it was broadcast on U.S. television in the summer of 2013.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

George A. Cooper is a very profilic British actor with a long list of credits on film and television. He was born in 1925 in Leeds. His movie debut was in 1946 in “Men of Two Worlds”. His movies include The Secret Place” in 1957, “Miracle in Soho” and “Violent Playground”. George A. Cooper died in 2018.

“Loose Cannon” page website:

George Cooper was born in Leeds in 1925, As a youth he decided he wanted to be an electrical engineer. He soon changed his mind and his next planned career was as an architect which also fell by the side as he realised his true yearning was to be an actor. However the war intervened and he was called up for National Service and became a Royal Artillery Surveyor, being posted in Dulally India where he became involved in the armies concert party.

After the war he joined the Theatre Workshop in Manchester run by Joan Littlewood where he stopped for almost 6 years whilst gradually moving into television and adding the “A” to his stage name due to confusion with another George Cooper.

During the 1960’s he become one of the most familiar character actors on television and his filmography includes almost all of the major shows of the day such as Coronation Street, The Adventures of Robin Hood, An Age of Kings, Danger Man, Z Cars, Softly Softly, The Avengers and Man in a Suitcase.

In the following decade he continued in the same stead but also managed to appear in many classic sitcoms such as Steptoe & Son, Bless this House, Rising Damp, Sykes and a well remembered role as the job advisor in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em who attempted to get Frank Spencer employment, the only time in a TV studio George admits to having an attack of the giggles. He also starred in the TV adaptation of Billy Liar in which he had previously starred in the West End.

Once again in the 1980’s George was again very busy in serials such as Juliet Bravo, When The Boat Comes In, CATS Eyes and Taggart before settling down in the role he is probably best remembered as Mr Griffiths, caretaker of Grange Hill, where his experience helped many of the young child actors, much to George’s delight.

Now retired, George remains a very friendly man and enjoyed sharing his experiences with the Loose Cannon team on your behalf.

The above page on the “Loose Cannon” website can be accessed here.

Kenneth Nelson was born in North Carolina in 1930. His most prominent movie role was in “The Boys in the Band” in 1970. He relocated to the UK and was featured in such movies as “Hellraiser” in 1987 and “Nightbreed”. He died in 1993.

Jonathan Cecil & Anna Sharkey’s obituary in “The Independent”:

KENNETH NELSON was a most versatile and accomplished actor, equally at home in drama, musicals and light comedy.

Born in North Carolina, in 1930, Nelson made his first Broadway appearance in Seventeen (1951). Nine years later he created the part of Matt in the long-running musical The Fantasticks. Perhaps his most celebrated performance was as Michael the host in Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band (1968), which he recreated in London in 1969 and for the film version in 1970.

In 1971 Nelson settled permanently in England, appearing notably in Showboat, Alan Strachan’s compilation Cole (1974), David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Annie and for four years in the West End, then on tour, as the megalomaniac director in 42nd Street. He also made many television appearances, his gifts too often squandered as a ‘useful American type’.

As a performer Nelson will be remembered for his dark-eyed, vital, faun-like charm and his sympathetic, open-vowelled, old-world American voice. He could show a tough mordant streak as in the Crowley and Mamet plays: he also had a fine sense of comedy. In regional productions of Come Blow Your Horn and The Seven-Year Itch, he brought the same kind of subtle, light touch to Neil Simon’s and George Axelrod’s work as Richard Briers and Paul Eddington have brought to Alan Ayckbourn’s. In Cole he gave the most haunting rendition of that long and difficult ballad ‘Begin the Beguine’ since Cole Porter’s personal favourite, the sophisticated cabaret singer Hutch.

A dedicated Anglophile with a remarkable period sense, Nelson embraced his adopted country wholeheartedly: creating country gardens, and appreciating animals and interior design. He was exceedingly generous as a host and in his praise of friends: especially missed will be his congratulatory telephone calls after watching television performances, always to the point and delightfully effusive: ‘Darling, the camera loved you . . .’

During his last, dreadfully debilitating illness he never lost this enthusiasm, still sharing gossip and theatre memories with those whom he called his ‘close ones’, almost literally to the end, when he was cared for by his devoted sister Naomi Burns, as he had been throughout the last two months. Despite his painfully wasted appearance, visiting him was not in any way distressing. As popular with the hospital nursing staff as he had been with colleagues, he brought an almost backstage atmosphere to his room. Eyes lighting up his characteristic wide smile, he showed a most unegotistical eagerness for news from outside.

Kenny Nelson came into our lives just over 20 years ago. He was a warm-hearted, cultivated companion and an exceptional actor. He had a style and finesse not often found on today’s stage but he was by no means old-fashioned in approaching the avant-garde.

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Dominic Guard is best known for his roles in “The Go-Between” in 1971 and “Picnic at Hanging Rock” in 1976.

“Wikipedia”

As a 14-year-old he played Leo, the title character who has his momentous 13-year-old birthday in The Go-Between (1970),^[1] a performance for which he won a BAFTA award in 1971 as Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. The film won the main prize at the Cannnes film festival.

He later appeared in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), in Absolution (1978) alongside Richard Burton and Billy Connolly,^[2] in Gandhi (1982), and in P.D. James‘ An Unsuitable Job for a Woman alongside his cousin Pippa Guard.^[3] He appeared in a guest role as Olvir in the 1983 Doctor Who story Terminus.

In 1978 Guard voiced the role of Pippin in an animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. On stage he played Christopher in a 1982 production of “The Jeweller’s Shop” by Karol Wotjyla, later Pope John Paul II, at the Westminster Theatre, London. He continued acting regularly until 2000.

He is now a fully accredited child psychotherapist living in London. He has authored more than ten works for children,^[4] including “Little Box of Mermaid Treasures”, “Pirate Fun”, “The Dragon Master’s Tale”, and “Secrets of the Fairy Ring”. He is the father of two children with the actress Sharon Duce.

Vanessa Redgrave is generally regarded as one of the great actors of her generation. She was born in London in 1937. Her parents were the actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her late brother and sister were Corin and Lynn Redgrave. Her children the late Natasha Richardson and Joely Richardson are/were actors as is her husband Franco Nero. She has alternated her career between stage and sscreen and between the U.K. and the U.S. She made her movie debut in 1958 in “Behind the Mask” and came to international fame in 1965 in the movie “Morgan. A Suitable Case for Treatment”. Subsequent films include “Blow Up”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, “Agatha”, “Camelot”, “Julia” and “The Pledge”.

TCM overview:

From her start on the London stage in the 1960s, Vanessa Redgrave went on to become one of the most internationally respected actresses of stage and screen, with the Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Tony awards to prove it. Redgrave was trained in the classical tradition but made her mark essaying non-conforming free-thinkers like modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan in “Isadora” (1968) and a 19th century American feminist in “The Bostonians” (1984), while earning her share of controversy for her outspoken activism through decades of international politics and human rights issues. Redgrave brought the same passion for her convictions to her acting work. Despite her ability to carry a film with a bold lead character, Redgrave spent a considerable amount of her screen career as a versatile supporting player in art house fare like the controversial “Julia” (1977); biopics like “Wilde” (1997) and “The Gathering Storm” (HBO, 2002); period dramas such as “Howard’s End” (1992) and “Atonement” (2007); and American independent films like “Little Odessa” (1994) and “The Pledge” (2001). She also made a few successful forays into Hollywood blockbuster territory with supporting roles in “Mission: Impossible” (1996) and “Deep Impact” (1998) while her stage career continued unabated. As the center of a family acting dynasty that went back several generations and would produce further generations of performers, Redgrave held an esteemed position in entertainment history for her own high level of work and that which she generated in her collaborators.

Born in London, England on Jan. 30, 1937, Redgrave was born into an acting empire as the daughter of legendary stage and screen performer Michael Redgrave, best known for Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” (1938), and actress Rachel Kempson. The sibling of two equally notable actors, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, she entered London’s School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and made her professional debut four years later in “A Touch of the Sun,” co-starring her famous father. Redgrave became one of the British stage’s shining lights during the 1960s with productions of “As You Like It” and “The Seagull,” as well as her run in the title role of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1966) marking her greatest stage achievement of the period. She was unable to follow the play to Broadway or appear in its movie adaptation due to her own film career. Redgrave became a movie star thanks to the 1966 comedy “Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment” in which she played the long-suffering ex-wife of an eccentric young man (David Warner). She earned nominations from the Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and the Cannes Film Festival for her performance and followed it up by playing another hip Londoner in Michelangelo Antonioni’s stylish “Blow-Up” (1966). Both pictures helped solidify Redgrave’s screen persona as a modern, intelligent woman whose cool and impassive exterior masked a range of conflicting emotions and passions.

Redgrave’s next feature was “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1968), a BAFTA-nominated historical drama by Tony Richardson, who was Redgrave’s husband and the father of her two daughters. That union collapsed in 1967 amidst much-publicized allegations of his affair with French actress Jeanne Moreau. That same year, Redgrave crossed the Atlantic to star as Guinevere in the film version of the hit Broadway musical “Camelot” (1967). Her Lancelot was up-and-coming Italian actor Franco Nero, and their onscreen romance translated into an off-screen relationship that produced a son, future director and screenwriter Carlo Nero. Redgrave was perfectly cast and earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of iconoclastic modern dance innovator Isadora Duncan in the biopic “Isadora” (1968). As her fame grew, so did her reputation as a fierce political campaigner for liberal and world causes. A socialist by her own description, she was arrested during anti-military and nuclear proliferation protests, and led marches against the Vietnam War in the United States. She also ran four times for a seat in the British Parliament as a candidate for the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which advocated the dissolution of capitalism and the British monarchy.

The actress’ star dimmed a bit during the 1970s, and her difficulty finding substantial work on screen led to supporting parts or leads in more artistic and independent-minded productions. She was top-billed in the historic drama “Mary, Queen of Scots” (1971) and earned an Oscar nod for portrayal of Scotland’s last Roman Catholic leader, but her subsequent appearances found smaller and more select audiences. She played a mentally unstable nun whose passion for a local priest (Oliver Reed) leads to a horrific witch hunt in Ken Russell’s shocking “The Devils” (1971), and essayed the tragic Andromache opposite Katharine Hepburn in the U.S.-Greek production of “The Trojan Women” (1971). Returning to film in 1974 as one of the all-star suspects in Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” she also played a patient of Sigmund Freud whose plight attracts the attention of Sherlock Holmes in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” (1976). That same year, she made her Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen’s “The Lady from the Sea.”

In 1977, Redgrave was cast in the pivotal title role in “Julia” (1977), based on playwright Lillian Hellman’s own friendship with a woman who later enlists her in a fight against the growing tide of Nazism in Europe. Redgrave won the Best Actress Oscar for her impassioned performance, but the award ceremony was tainted by protests over her acceptance speech, which cited her refusal to cave in the face of threats from what she described as “Zionist hoodlums.” Redgrave was an open supporter of the Palestinian cause, and her portrayal of a Jew in the film generated anger from the Jewish Defense League who openly protested the Oscars due to her nomination. They were also upset about the 1977 documentary “The Palestinian,” which she narrated and produced. Despite criticism from Jewish groups, Redgrave won the Oscar for “Julia” in 1977 and went on to earn an Emmy for her performance as a concentration camp survivor in the 1980 television movie “Playing for Time.” There was no denying, however, that the controversy had a chilling effect on her career.

For much of the next decade, Redgrave experienced her share of box office failures like “Agatha” (1979), but she maintained the respect and interest of art house fans with roles including that of a lesbian suffragette in “The Bostonians” (1984), which earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and “Wetherby” (1985), which marked the directorial debut of playwright David Hare. “Prick Up Your Ears” (1987) brought her a New York Film Critics Award for her turn as Peggy Ramsay, agent to playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman). Television also offered her exceptional roles, including that of transsexual tennis player Renee Richards in 1986’s “Second Serve” and the Joan Crawford role in a remake of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” opposite sister Lynne in 1991. She also appeared on Broadway for the first time in over a decade in a 1988 production of Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending,” which was filmed for broadcast on TNT in 1990.

Redgrave settled into a string of small but high profile roles like the period costume drama “Howards End” (1992), which earned the actress another Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and “Little Odessa” (1994), where she played the seriously ill mother of a Russian mobster (Tim Roth). Tom Cruise and Brian De Palma handpicked her to play arms dealer “Max” in “Mission: Impossible” (1996), and she shone as Oscar Wilde’s mother in “Wilde” (1997) as well as in a rare lead as Virginia Woolf’s reflective heroine, “Mrs. Dalloway” in 1997. Save for the latter, these supporting turns allowed Redgrave the fluidity to focus on other aspects of her career, including stage performances and her role as a United Nations Special Representative of the Arts, for which she mounted festivals in Kosovo and other war-torn regions. She and brother Corin also established the Moving Theater, which staged a production of the long-lost Tennessee Williams play “Not About Nightingales” in 1998.

Balancing turns in big budget productions with stellar performances in quieter independent films, Redgrave continued to work steadily after reaching her 60th birthday. She played the female head of a mob family in the campy TV miniseries “Bella Mafia” (1997) and appeared in the sci-fi disaster film “Deep Impact” (1998) while taking supporting roles in dramas “Girl, Interrupted” (2000), Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” (2001) and “A Rumor of Angels” (2000). Her turn as a sixties-era lesbian who loses her long-time partner in the tragic “1961” episode of HBO’s “If These Walls Could Talk 2” earned her a Golden Globe and an award for Excellence in Media from GLAAD. She followed this with an Emmy-nominated turn as Clementine Churchill, wife of famed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in “The Gathering Storm” in 2002. In 2003, she received her first Tony Award for a Broadway production of “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Her political voice still as strong as ever, during this period Redgrave and brother Corin launched the Party for Peace and Progress, which stumped against the U.S. and U.K.’s involvement in Iraq, as well as for the rights of political dissidents and refugees.

In 2005, Redgrave returned to American television in a recurring role on the controversial series, “Nip/Tuck” (FX, 2003-2010) as the mother of Julia McNamara, played by her own daughter, Joely Richardson. She also co-starred with daughter Natasha in the well-regarded Merchant/Ivory production “The White Countess,” and enjoyed substantial parts in a string of critically lauded features, including “Venus” (2006), “Evening” (2007), and “Atonement” (2007), which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Consistently active in theater, Redgrave was awarded the Ibsen Centennial Award in 2006 for her efforts in plays by the acclaimed author, but she was nominated for a Tony for portraying author Joan Didion in the one-woman play “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2007). In March 2009, Redgrave found herself in the news for the most unfortunate of circumstances when her eldest daughter and frequent collaborator, Natasha Richardson, suffered critical head injuries in a skiing accident while on vacation in Canada. Redgrave, her daughter Joely, her own sister Lynn, and Richardson’s husband of over a decade, actor Liam Neeson, kept a bedside vigil at the New York hospital where Natasha was transferred after the head injury two days before. On March 18, 2009, Redgrave lost her daughter after she was taken off life support following confirmation that she was officially brain dead. She was just 45. A little over a year later, Redgrave also lost both of her siblings within less than a month of each other, with Corin Redgrave dying in London on April 6, 2010 and younger sister Lynn passing on May 2, 2010 after a battle with breast cancer.

In spite of these tragedies, Redgrave continued to work as hard as ever, appearing in no fewer than five projects that year, including the films “Letters to Juliet” (2010) and “The Whistleblower” (2010). She then lent her imperious voice to a vehicular version of Her Majesty the Queen for the Disney/Pixar sequel “Cars 2” (2011) and played the all-too human Queen Elizabeth I in director Roland Emmerich’s fictionalized examination of who actually penned the works attributed to William Shakespeare in “Anonymous” (2011). Near the end of that year, Redgrave portrayed Volumnia, the influential mother of banished Roman general “Coriolanus” (2011). Helmed by first-time director Ralph Fiennes, who also starred in the title role, the film was a modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s epic tragedy of the same name.

The TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Brittish Actors

Linden Travers

Benedict Taylor

Jeremy Northam

Paul Nicholls

David Tennant

George A. Cooper

Kenneth Nelson

Dominic Guard

Vanessa Redgrave

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