In today’s world, it’s not enough to have talent to shine in any walks of life unless you have carefully nurtured them under proper guidance and system. Vanessa Redgrave’s life is a clear testament to this. She is considered among the finest of actresses all over the world in films, plays and television aswell.Apart form these, she is also a noted political activist who on 1995 was selected as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
The ability to act without seeming to act was probably embedded in Vanessa Redgrave’s genes from birth. She was born in London on the 30th of January, 1937, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. She was educated at The Alice Ottley School, Worcester & Queen’s Gate School, London before “coming out” as a debutante. Her late siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954. She first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958.
Her stage career includes scores of critically acclaimed plays all through the years between 1958 and till date. Some of her more memorable plays include Robert Bolt’s ‘The Tiger and the Horse’, having her father as a co-star, William Gaskill’s ‘Cymbeline’ for the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Tempest, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Year of Magical Thinking, to name just a few. She won four Evening Standard Award for Best Actress in four decades. She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a Revival in 1984 for The Aspern Papers.
Vanessa Redgrave’s film career is equally impressive. The highlight being 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 nomination); her portrayal of the cool London swinger, Jane, in 1966’s Blowup; her awe-inspiring portrayal of dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora (for which she won a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, a second Prize for the Best Female Performance at the Cannes film festival, 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, Queen of Scots in the film of the same name. She has worked in films as late as ‘Mission: Impossibe’, incidentally which had Tom Cruise as the male lead. Her yet to be released film is ‘Letters to Juliet’, having her husband Franco Nero along with her. It is speculated to come out sometime on 2010.
Since the 1960s, Vanessa Redgrave has supported a range of political causes, including opposition to the Vietnam War, nuclear disarmament, freedom for Soviet Jews for which in 1993 she was awarded the Sakharov medal by Sakharov’s widow, Yelena Bonner, and aid for Bosnian Muslims and other victims of war. She also advocates the unification of Ireland. She was a co-founding member of Artists Against Racism. She is also noted for her support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
In December 2007, Redgrave was named as one of the possible suretors who paid the £50,000 bail for Jamil al Banna, one of three British residents arrested after landing back in the UK following four years’ captivity at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Banna is alleged to have run a terrorist cell called the Islamic Alliance, which recruited people to wage jihad in Afghanistan and Indonesia. He also is accused of distributing extremist propaganda produced by Osama bin Laden. Redgrave has declined to be specific about her financial involvement but said she was “very happy” to be of “some small assistance for Jamil and his wife”, adding, “It is a profound honour and I am glad to be alive to be able to do this. Guantanamo Bay is a concentration camp.”
Whatever her political ideologies might be, there’s no doubt even to her bitterest critics that what Vanessa Redgrave does, she does it with inherent flamboyance and style. We can be sure that this beauty is like wine…She gets better with age and certainly is going to enthrall the world with her talented acting for many days to come.