Lynn Redgrave

Redgrave made her Broadway debut in 1967 and performed in several stage productions in New York City while making frequent returns to London's West End. She performed with her sister Vanessa in Three Sisters in London and in the title role of Baby Jane Hudson in a television production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? In 1991. Redgrave made a return to cinema in the late 1990s, in films such as Shine (1996) and Gods and Monsters (1998), for which she received her second Academy Award nomination and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Lynn Redgrave studied at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Queen's Gate School. The recorded working language is English. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.

• Birth Name — Lynn Rachel Redgrave • Born — 8 March 1943 • Birthplace — Marylebone, London, England • Died — 2 May 2010 • Place of death — Kent, Connecticut, US • Resting Place — * St. Peter's Episcopal Cemetery • Lithgow, New York, US • Citizenship — * United Kingdom • United States • Occupation — Actress • Education — Royal Central School of Speech and Drama • Years Active — 1962–2010 • Parents — * Sir Michael Redgrave • Rachel Kempson • Children — 3 • Family — Redgrave • Website — http: www.redgrave.com

Redgrave was born on 8 March 1943, in Marylebone, London, as the youngest child of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her siblings included actress Vanessa Redgrave and actor/political activist Corin Redgrave. Redgrave was also the aunt of writer/director Carlo Gabriel Nero and actresses Joely Richardson, Jemma Redgrave, and Natasha Richardson, and the sister-in-law of director Tony Richardson, actress Kika Markham, and Italian actor Franco Nero. Her grandfather was silent screen leading man Roy Redgrave. Redgrave attended Queen's Gate School in London, where she initially trained to become a professional show jumper. However, Redgrave left the school in 1959 and later studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

• Illustration — Redgrave family (l. to r. Jemma, Corin, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave) bowing after reading "Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak" • Illustration — Redgrave at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival After training at London's Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Redgrave made her professional debut in a 1962 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. Following a tour of Billy Liar and repertory work in Dundee, Redgrave made her West End debut at the Haymarket, in N. C. Hunter's The Tulip Tree with Celia Johnson and John Clements. Redgrave was invited to join the National Theatre for its inaugural season at the Old Vic, working with such directors as Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli and Noël Coward in roles like Rose in The Recruiting Officer, Barblin in Andorra, Jackie in Hay Fever, Kattrin in Mother Courage, Miss Prue in Love for Love and Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing, which kept her busy for the next three years. During that time, Redgrave appeared in films such as Tom Jones (1963), Girl with Green Eyes (1964), The Deadly Affair (1966), and the title role in Georgy Girl (also 1966, and which featured her mother, Rachel Kempson). For the last of these roles, she gained the New York Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. In 1967, Redgrave made her Broadway debut in Black Comedy with Michael Crawford and Geraldine Page. London appearances included Michael Frayn's The Two of Us with Richard Briers at the Garrick, David Hare's Slag at the Royal Court and Born Yesterday, directed by Tom Stoppard at Greenwich in 1973. Redgrave returned to Broadway in 1974, in My Fat Friend. There soon followed Knock Knock with Charles Durning, Mrs. Warren's Profession (for a Tony nomination) with Ruth Gordon and Saint Joan. During the 1985–86 season, she appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert and Jeremy Brett in Aren't We All?, and with Mary Tyler Moore in A. R. Gurney's Sweet Sue. In 1983, Redgrave played Cleopatra in an American television version of Antony and Cleopatra opposite Timothy Dalton. She was in Misalliance in Chicago with Irene Worth (earning the Sarah Siddons and Joseph Jefferson awards), Twelfth Night at the American Shakespeare Festival, California Suite, The King and I, Hellzapoppin, Les Dames du Jeudi, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Cherry Orchard. In 1988, Redgrave narrated a dramatised television documentary, Silent Mouse, which told the story of the creation of the Christmas carol Silent Night. She starred with Stewart Granger and Ricardo Montalbán in a Hollywood production of Don Juan in Hell in the early winter of 1991. With her sister Vanessa as Olga, Redgrave returned to the London stage playing Masha in Three Sisters in 1991 at the Queen's Theatre, London, and later played the title role in a television production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? again with her sister. Highlights of Redgrave's early film career also include The National Health, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), The Happy Hooker and Getting It Right. In the United States, she was seen in such television series as Teachers Only, House Calls, Centennial and Chicken Soup. Redgrave also starred in BBC productions such as The Faint-Hearted Feminist, A Woman Alone, Death of a Son, Calling the Shots and Fighting Back. She played Broadway again in Moon Over Buffalo (1996) with co-star Robert Goulet and starred in the world premiere of Tennessee Williams' The Notebook of Trigorin, based on Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Redgrave won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Talking Heads. Redgrave became well-known in the United States after appearing in the television series House Calls, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Redgrave was fired from the series after she insisted on bringing her child to rehearsals so as to continue a breastfeeding schedule. A lawsuit ensued but was dismissed a few years later. Following that, Redgrave appeared in a long-running series of television commercials for H. J. Heinz Company, then the manufacturer of the weight loss foods for Weight Watchers, a Heinz subsidiary. Her signature line for the ads was "This Is Living, Not Dieting!" Redgrave wrote a book of her life experiences with the same title, which included a selection of Weight Watchers recipes. The autobiographical section later became the basis of her one-woman play Shakespeare for My Father. In 1989, Redgrave appeared on Broadway in Love Letters with her husband John Clark, and thereafter they performed the play around the country, on one occasion for the jury in the O. J. Simpson case. In 1993, Redgrave appeared on Broadway in the one-woman play Shakespeare for My Father, which Clark produced and directed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 1993, Redgrave was elected president of the Players' Club. In 2005, Redgrave appeared at Quinnipiac University and Connecticut College in the play Sisters of the Garden, about the sisters Fanny and Rebekka Mendelssohn and Nadia and Lili Boulanger. She was also reported to be writing a one-woman play about her battle with breast cancer and her 2003 mastectomy, based on her book Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer with photos by her daughter Annabel and text by Redgrave herself. In September 2006, Redgrave appeared in Nightingale, the U.S. premiere of her new one-woman play based upon her maternal grandmother Beatrice, at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. Redgrave also performed the play in May 2007 at Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2007, she appeared in an episode of Desperate Housewives as Dahlia Hainsworth, the mother of Susan Delfino's boyfriend Ian Hainsworth. In 2009, Redgrave was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Redgrave narrated approximately 20 audiobooks, including Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library.

On 2 April 1967, Lynn Redgrave married actor John Clark. Together they had three children. Her marriage to Clark was dissolved in 2000, two years after he revealed that he had had an affair with her personal assistant, and that Lynn's supposed grandson was in fact Clark's own son by the personal assistant, who had married (and subsequently divorced) Clark and Redgrave's son. The divorce proceedings were acrimonious and became front-page news, with Clark alleging that Redgrave had also been unfaithful. On 5 January 1998, Redgrave became a naturalised citizen of the United States. Redgrave was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to acting and the cinema and to the British community in Los Angeles.

Redgrave discussed her health problems associated with bulimia and breast cancer. Redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2002 and had a mastectomy in January 2003 and underwent chemotherapy. She ultimately died from the cancer at her home in Kent, Connecticut, on 2 May 2010, aged 67. Redgrave's funeral was held on 8 May 2010 at the First Congregational Church in Kent. She was interred in St Peter's Episcopal Cemetery in the hamlet of Lithgow, New York, where her mother Rachel Kempson and her niece Natasha Richardson are also interred. In 2012, the Folger Shakespeare Library acquired Redgrave's collection of personal papers and photographs.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1965 — Sunday Out of Season — Elaine — TV film • 1966 — Comedy Playhouse — Sheila — Episode: "The End of the Tunnel" • 1966 — Love Story — Rosemarie — Episode: "Ain't Afraid to Dance" • 1966 — Armchair Theatre — Polly Barlow — Episode: "Pretty Polly" • 1967 — Armchair Theatre — Ivy Toft Caroline — Episode: "I Am Osango" Episode: "What's Wrong with Humpty Dumpty?" • 1968 — Love Story — Mary Downey — Episode: "The Egg on the Face of the Tiger" • 1971 — Play of the Month — Helena — Episode: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" • 1973 — Play of the Month — Eliza Doolittle — Episode: "Pygmalion" • 1974 — Vienna 1900 — Berta Garlan — Episode: "The Spring Sonata" • 1974 — The — Miss Jane Cubberly — TV film • 1976 — Kojak — Claire — Episode: "A Hair-Trigger Away" • 1978 — Disco Beaver from Outer Space — Dr. Van Helsing — TV film • 1978–1979 — Centennial — Charlotte Buckland Seccombe — TV miniseries • 1979 — Sooner or Later — The teacher — TV film • 1979 — Beggarman, Thief — Kate Jordache — TV miniseries • 1979 — The Muppet Show — Herself — Episode: "Lynn Redgrave" • 1979–1981 — House Calls — Ann Anderson — Main role (41 episodes) • 1980 — Gauguin the Savage — Mette Gad — TV film • 1980 — The — Miss Leona de Vose — TV film • 1982 — Rehearsal for Murder — Monica Welles — TV film • 1982 — CBS Schoolbreak Special — Sarah Cotter — Episode: "The Shooting" • 1982 — The — Patti White — 1 episode • 1982–1983 — Teachers Only — Diana Swanson — Main role (21 episodes) • 1983 — Hotel — Cathy Knight — Episode: "Relative Loss" • 1984 — Antony and Cleopatra — Cleopatra — TV film • 1984 — Fantasy Island — Kristen Robbins — 1 episode • 1984 — The — Martha — TV series • 1984 — Murder, She Wrote — Abby Benton Freestone — Episode: "It's a Dog's Life" • 1985 — The — Monica Breedlove — TV film • 1986 — My Two Loves — Marjorie Lloyd — TV film • 1986 — Hotel — Audrey Beck — Episode: "Restless Nights" • 1988 — A — The Woman — TV film • 1989 — Screen Two — Pauline Williams — Episode: "Death of a Son" • 1989 — Chicken Soup — Maddie Peerce — Main role (12 episodes) • 1990 — Silent Mouse — Narrator — TV film • 1990 — The — Abby Greyhouwsky — TV film • 1991 — What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? — Jane Hudson — TV film • 1993 — Calling the Shots — Maggie Donnelly • 1997 — Toothless — Rogers — TV film • 1997 — Indefensible: The Truth About Edward Brannigan — Monica Brannigan — TV film • 1998 — White Lies — Inga Kolneder — TV film • 1998–2001 — Rude Awakening — Trudy Frank — Main role (55 episodes) • 1999 — The Nanny — Herself — Episode: "The Yummy Mummy" • 1999 — Different — Amanda Talmadge — TV film • 1999 — A — Hon. Judge Nancy Jakes — TV film • 2001 — Varian's War — Alma Werfel-Mahler — TV film • 2002 — My Sister's Keeper — Helen Margaret Chapman — TV film • 2003 — The — Cordelia Thornberry — Voice, Episodes: "Sir Nigel: Parts 1 & 2" • 2006–2007 — Eloise: The Animated Series — Nanny — Voice, Regular role (6 episodes) • 2007 — Desperate Housewives — Dahlia Hainsworth — Episode: "Dress Big" • 2007 — Nurses — Peggy Rice — TV film • 2009 — Law & Order: Criminal Intent — Emily Huntford — Episode: "Folie a Deux" • 2009 — Ugly Betty — Olivia Guillemette — Episode: "The Butterfly Effect: Part 1"

• Year — Title — Role — House — Notes • 1962 — A — Helena — Royal Court • 1962 — Billy Liar — Dundee • 1962 — The — Haymarket • 1963 — The — Rose — National • 1963 — Andorra — Barblin — National • 1963 — Hamlet • 1964 — Hay Fever — Jackie — National • 1965 — Much Ado About Nothing — Margaret — National • 1965–1966 — Love for Love • 1967 — Black Comedy / The White Liars — Carol Melkett — National • 1970 — The • 1971 — Slag • 1974 — My Fat Friend — Vicky • 1976 — Mrs. Warren's Profession — Vivie Warren • 1976 — Knock Knock — Joan — Replacement • 1976 — Misalliance • 1977–1978 — Saint Joan — Joan • 1985 — Aren't We All? — Hon. Mrs. W. Tatham • 1987 — Sweet Sue — Susan Too • 1989–1990 — Love Letters — Melissa Gardner — Replacement • 1992 — A — Angelique Pinglet • 1992 — The — Mrs. Aline Solness • 1993–1994 — Shakespeare for My Father — Performer • 1995–1996 — Moon Over Buffalo — Charlotte Hay — Replacement • 2001 — Noises Off • 2002 — Company — Joanne • 2005 — The Constant Wife — Mrs. Culver • 2006 — The Lost Colony — Queen Elizabeth I — Waterside Theatre at Fort Raleigh • 2009 — The — Lady Bracknell — Touring