Vanessa Redgrave, (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.
She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London’s West End and Broadway, winning both the Tony and Olivier Awards. On screen, she has starred in more than 80 films; including Mary, Queen of Scots, Isadora, Julia, The Bostonians, Mission: Impossible and Atonement. Redgrave was proclaimed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as “the greatest living actress of our times,” and she remains the only British actress ever to win the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Cannes, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guildawards. She was also the recipient of the 2010 BAFTA Fellowship ”in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film.”
Highlights of Redgrave’s early film career include 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 a cool London swinger in 1966′s Blowup; her spirited portrayal of dancer Isadora Duncan inIsadora (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 also played the role of Guinevere in the film Camelot with Richard Harris and Franco Nero.
A member of the Redgrave family of actors, she is the daughter of the late Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (the actressRachel Kempson), the sister of the late Lynn Redgrave and the late Corin Redgrave, the mother of Hollywood actresses Joely Richardson and the late Natasha Richardson, and the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave.
In 1995 Redgrave was elected to serve as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
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