Vanessa Redgrave

Dame Vanessa Redgrave, born on 30 January 1937 in Blackheath, London, is an English actress and activist whose career has spanned more than six decades. The daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, she is the sister of actors Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, and the mother of actresses Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson and screenwriter-director Carlo Gabriel Nero. She is married to Italian actor Franco Nero. Among the honors she has accumulated are an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Volpi Cup, an Olivier Award, a BAFTA Fellowship Award, a Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, making her one of a small number of performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting.

Redgrave spent her early years partly displaced by the Second World War, relocating with her family to Bromyard, Herefordshire, following the East End Blitz before returning to London in 1943. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School in Worcester and Queen's Gate School in London. In 1954 she entered the Central School of Speech and Drama, and by 1958 she had made her stage debut in A Touch of Sun and her film debut alongside her father in the medical drama Behind the Mask. That same year she appeared in the West End opposite her brother. In 1959 she performed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre under Peter Hall's direction, playing Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream opposite Charles Laughton and appearing in Coriolanus alongside Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, and Edith Evans. Her first starring stage role came in 1960 in Robert Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse, again co-starring with her father. In 1961 she rose to wider prominence playing Rosalind in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1962 she played Imogen in William Gaskill's RSC production of Cymbeline. In 1966 she created the role of Jean Brodie in the stage adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Muriel Spark's novel.

Her film career gained significant momentum in 1966 with the satirical drama Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, directed by Karel Reisz and co-starring David Warner, which earned her an Oscar nomination, a Cannes award, a Golden Globe nomination, and a BAFTA Film Award nomination. That same year she appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, the director's first English-language film, opposite David Hemmings, and in A Man for All Seasons. She played Guinevere in Camelot in 1967 alongside Richard Harris and Franco Nero. Reuniting with Reisz for Isadora in 1968, her portrayal of dancer Isadora Duncan brought her a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, a second Best Female Performance prize at Cannes, and further Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. Additional Oscar nominations followed for Mary, Queen of Scots in 1971, The Bostonians in 1984, and Howards End in 1992. Her other film credits include The Devils in 1971, directed by Ken Russell, in which she played Mother Superior Jeanne des Anges; Murder on the Orient Express in 1974; Agatha in 1979; Prick Up Your Ears in 1987; Mission: Impossible in 1996; Venus in 2006; Atonement in 2007; Coriolanus in 2011; and Foxcatcher in 2014.

In 1977 Redgrave starred as the title character in Julia, a woman killed by the Nazi regime for her anti-Fascist activism, opposite Jane Fonda. The role earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her acceptance speech, in which she referred to members of the Jewish Defense League who had picketed the ceremony as "Zionist hoodlums," drew an on-stage response from screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky later in the evening. That same year she produced and appeared in The Palestinian, a documentary following the activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon, which drew criticism from numerous Jewish groups.

On the London stage, Redgrave won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival for The Aspern Papers in 1984 and received Olivier nominations for A Touch of the Poet in 1988, John Gabriel Borkman in 1997, and The Inheritance in 2019.

Redgrave's Broadway career extended from 1976 to 2010 and encompassed five productions. She appeared in the drama Orpheus Descending, the drama Long Day's Journey Into Night, the play The Lady from the Sea, the play Driving Miss Daisy, and The Year of Magical Thinking. Her performance in Long Day's Journey Into Night earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2003 as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play that same year. Her work in The Year of Magical Thinking brought her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance in 2007, along with a Tony Award nomination. She also received a Tony nomination for Driving Miss Daisy in 2011. Redgrave was born in London, England.