Dame Vanessa Redgrave DBE (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over six decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Redgrave made her acting debut on stage with the production of A Touch of Sun in 1958. She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in the Shakespearean comedy As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since starred in more than 35 productions in London's West End and on Broadway, winning the 1984 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival for The Aspern Papers, and the 2003 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the revival of Long Day's Journey into Night. She also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy.
Redgrave made her film debut starring opposite her father in the medical drama Behind the Mask (1958), and rose to prominence with the satire Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), which garnered her first of her six Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress for Julia (1977). Her other nominations were for Isadora (1968), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), The Bostonians (1984), and Howards End (1992). Among her other films are A Man for All Seasons (1966), Blowup (1966), Camelot (1967), The Devils (1971), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Prick Up Your Ears (1987), Mission: Impossible (1996), Atonement (2007), Letters to Juliet (2010), Coriolanus (2011), Cars 2 (2011), and The Butler (2013).
A member of the Redgrave family of actors, she is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (Rachel Kempson), the sister of Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, the wife of Italian actor Franco Nero, the mother of actresses Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson and of screenwriter and director Carlo Gabriel Nero, the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave, the mother-in-law of actor Liam Neeson and film producer Tim Bevan, and the grandmother of Daisy Bevan and Micheál and Daniel Neeson.
Early life
Redgrave was born on 30 January 1937 in Blackheath, London, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Laurence Olivier announced her birth to the audience at a performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic, when he said that Laertes (played by Sir Michael) had a daughter. Accounts say Olivier announced, "A great actress has been born this night."
In her autobiography, Redgrave recalls the East End and Coventry Blitzes among her earliest memories. Following the East End Blitz, Redgrave relocated with her family to Herefordshire before returning to London in 1943. She was educated at two independent schools for girls: the Alice Ottley School in Worcester, and Queen's Gate School in London, before "coming out" as a debutante. Her siblings Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave were also actors.
