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Michael Redgrave

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave
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(born March 20, 1908, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng. — died March 21, 1985, Denham, Buckinghamshire) British actor. He made his stage debut in 1934 and acted with the Old Vic and the National Theatre in classic roles from William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, and Anton Chekhov and in modern works such as Family Reunion (1939) and Tiger at the Gate (1955). Noted for his refined good looks and expressive voice, he began his film career in The Lady Vanishes (1938) and continued with roles in Dead of Night (1945), Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and The Browning Version (1951).

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Biography: Michael Redgrave
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English actor Michael Redgrave (1908-1985), a tall man with an aristocratic bearing, became a major force in British stage and screen during the mid-twentieth century. Part of the generation of classically trained actors that included Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, Redgrave appeared in numerous films, including "Goodbye Mr. Chips, Nicholas and Alexandra" and the first film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest".

Considered one of the foremost British actors of his generation, Michael Redgrave performed in 35 motion pictures over his long career, although he far preferred the many hours he spent performing in front of a live audience on the London stage. Paired with such noted film directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Carol Reed and Anthony Asquith, Redgrave gained particular renown for his performance in films adapted from classic plays and literature, among them The Importance of Being Earnest and The Innocents, the latter an adaptation of American novelist Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. Redgrave was the consummate "actor's actor"; as Nigel Warrington described him in Theatre Research International, he was "passionate, literate, industrious, humorous and a model of professional ethics."

A Well-studied Thespian

Michael Scudamore Redgrave was born on March 20, 1908, in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, the son of George Ellsworth and Margaret (Scudamore) Redgrave. Redgrave's parents were both actors, his father a wellknown Australian silent-film star who worked under the name Roy Redgrave.

A bright child, Redgrave seemed at first destined for life as an academic. Attending Clifton College until 1927, he then enrolled at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself among his classmates as a poet, editor of the school magazine Venture and contributor of film reviews to the literary magazine Granta.

Having a vague idea of one day becoming a writer, after graduating in 1932 he decided to take the prescribed next step for someone who was not independently wealthy. In 1934 the 25-year-old Cambridge University graduate got a job as a modern-language teacher at England's Cranleigh School. Having been active in theatre as an undergraduate student - he directed a production of The Battle of the Book in 1930 - Redgrave quickly gravitated to Cranleigh's theatre program.

Inspired to return to his acting roots when his work with young thespians won him praise, Redgrave left Cranleigh and entered the theatre in the mid-1930. He made his stage debut in 1934 in the Liverpool Playhouse production of Counsellor-at-Law, and for the next two years he performed, under William Armstrong's direction, in repertory.

He soon came to the attention of noted stage director Tyrone Guthrie, who saw promise in the young man's talent, height and aristocratic bearing. Guthrie asked Redgrave to perform with England's legendary Old Vic company. Jumping at the chance to work with such noted performers as Edith Evans, Olivier, Ashcroft and others, Redgrave moved to London in 1936. At the Old Vic he was soon cast in major roles in various Shakespeare productions, among them Hamlet. In 1937 Redgrave moved to the Queen's Theatre, working with Gielgud's repertory company.

In 1938 Redgrave left Gielgud to work with an up-and-coming film director he admired and wound up capturing the heart of film audiences with his role as an eccentric music scholar in Alfred Hitchcock's witty comedy-thriller The Lady Vanishes. From then on, films would often take precedence over his passion for the stage, even though he professed a certain highbrow disdain for movies throughout his career.

With his work for Hitchcock critically hailed, Redgrave found no trouble tracking down other film roles. Working under British director Carol Reed, he appeared in the 1939 films Climbing High and The Stars Look Down. He followed these up with the title role in Kipps, released in 1941, and as Captain Karel Hasek in the 1946 drama The Captive Heart, one of several war-related films Redgrave made after finishing a two-year stint in the Royal Navy during World War II. In 1947 he earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance, opposite American actress Rosalind Russell, in the role of Orin Mannon in the film version of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra.

Brief Tour in Hollywood

By now a well-known matinee idol, Redgrave was tempted by Hollywood, but after arriving in 1947 to work on Electra with director Dudley Nichols, he was less than impressed. He remained for only a few more months, completing work with transplanted German director Fritz Lang on the 1948 drama Secret beyond the Door, then returned to London.

The early 1950s provided Redgrave with several opportunities to showcase his skills as a comic actor in films. He impressed audiences and critics alike in his portrayal of a repressed schoolteacher in the award-winning film The Browning Version, released in 1951. In the part of Jack Worthington (a.k.a. Ernest Worthing) in Anthony Asquith's 1952 film version of Oscar Wilde's classic play The Importance of Being Earnest, he demonstrated keen comic timing while starring opposite Joan Greenwood and the indomitable Dame Edith Evans.

While continuing to seek out roles that challenged his natural abilities, Redgrave was a serious student of the craft of acting. He paid special attention to those performers he revered and was known to devote long hours to rehearsing his roles, whether for stage or screen. In addition, he was an adherent of Konstantin Stanislavsky's classic method book An Actor Prepares. Though Redgrave stood six feet three inches and was muscular, he often used his gait, stance and body language to depict bookish, ineffectual and vulnerable character types - a testament to his acting ability.

Classified, alongside Olivier and Gielgud, as a "cerebral" actor, Redgrave was often assigned the role of reserved, preoccupied upper-class gentleman, and he performed such roles to critical acclaim in films like The Browning Version and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, which was released in 1962. Commenting on the actor's "quite palpable sense of discomfort," a contributor to the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers added that "few manage better to convey the anguish engendered by having strong feelings but being denied the outlet to express them than Redgrave…"

In addition to portraying a brand of constrained nobility, Redgrave was no stranger to more over-the-top performances, as in his role as a lighthouse keeper in the 1942 film Thunder Rock and in the highly praised 1945 thriller Dead of Night, wherein he took on the role of a ventriloquist driven mad by his sinister dummy. Also noteworthy was his depiction of the cruel and exploitative inquisitor in the 1956 film adaptation of George Orwell's novel 1984, and the reserved Redgrave seemed frighteningly believable as an alcoholic father in Time without Pity, released that same year.

Love of the Stage

Like many of his peers, Redgrave was most at home on the stage and viewed work in films as a necessary but less pleasant part of being an actor. Even in films, he preferred taking on roles derived from plays, such as King Lear, Hamlet and characters created by Anton Chekhov and Eugene O'Neill. In 1948 he made his first Broadway appearance, playing Macbeth.

It came as a surprise to many when he returned full time to the British stage the following year at the urging of director Hugh Hunt. Beginning with the role of Young Marlow in Hunt's 1949 production of She Stoops to Conquer, Redgrave went on to perform the lead role in Hamlet the following year. His position on the London stage assured, he continued to appear in acclaimed National Theatre productions and was highly praised for his interpretation of leading figures in Shakespearean tragedies - including Prospero, Richard II, King Lear, Shylock and Antony - and for his performances in leading roles in Chekov's Uncle Vanya and Heinrich Ibsen's The Master Builder.

One of his finest hours on stage came in 1962, in a production of Uncle Vanya; his performance in the lead was so impressive that his friend Olivier insisted on immediately directing Redgrave in a film version of the play. The following year Redgrave appeared as Claudius in the National Theatre's first production of Hamlet, performing alongside his 20-year-old daughter, Lynn, in her role as a lady in waiting.

Although he was known to the general public predominately as an actor, Redgrave also produced and directed numerous plays. During World War II he staged six plays in London's popular West End and continued to direct sporadically during the next few decades. In 1951 he brought to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon a production of Henry IV, Part II. Later in his career Redgrave also produced and directed operas, music being one of his many interests. He even wrote and published several plays of his own, including 1936's The Seventh Man and 1959's The Aspern Papers, the latter an adaptation of a story by Henry James that Redgrave produced and starred in on the London stage.

Redgrave Dynasty

Himself the son of actors, Redgrave passed his parent's thespian leanings on. Married to Liverpool Playhouse colleague actress Rachel Kempson in 1935, he fathered three children, Vanessa, Corin and Lynn Redgrave, and all became actors - although Corin Redgrave eventually also pursued a political career. Among Redgrave's grandchildren, Natasha and Joely Richardson, daughters of Vanessa and husband, director Tony Richardson, both established careers as successful actors, as did Jemma Redgrave, daughter of Corin and former wife Deirdre Hamilton-Hill. Another grandson, film director Carlo Gabriel Nero, is the son of Vanessa and Camelot costar Franco Nero.

During the peak of his career audiences would not have accepted Redgrave's homsexuality, and it was not acknowledged until Corin Redgrave revealed it in his lovingly penned memoir Michael Redgrave: My Father.

Made a Companion of the British Empire in 1952, Redgrave was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1959 for his services to British theater. In addition to his plays, he wrote several books, including the 1959 novel The Mountebank Tale and two autobiographies: 1958's Face or Mask: Reflections in an Actor's Mirror and 1983's In My Mind's I: An Actor's Autobiography. His acting guide, The Actor's Ways and Means, collects the lectures Redgrave gave at Bristol University in the early 1950s; it has been praised as a classic introduction to stage acting since its publication in 1953 and was reprinted in a new addition in 1995, with a new introduction by Vanessa Redgrave.

A true professional, Redgrave continued to work into his sixties, acting in films such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). During the early 1970s he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative illness that made acting increasingly difficult. Redgrave's final film appearance was in a 1976 made-for-television dramatization of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. His final stage appearance came three years later, when he played a stroke victim in Simon Gray's The Close of the Play. By then confined to a wheelchair and finding it almost impossible to memorize sentences of more than a few words in length, the legendary actor had only one line, but his presence on stage was enough. He died six years later, at the age of 77, on March 21, 1985, in Denham, England.

Books

International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, St. James Press, 1996.

International Dictionary of Theatre, Volume 3: Actors, Directors, and Designers, St. James Press, 1996.

Kempson, Rachel, A Family and Its Fortunes, 1986.

Redgrave, Corin, Michale Redgrave: My Father, Trafalgar Square, 1996.

Redgrave, Michael, Mask or Face: Reflections in an Actor's Mirror, Viking, 1958.

Redgrave, Michael, In My Mind's I: An Actor's Autobiography, Viking, 1983.

Periodicals

Films and Filming, January-March 1955; December 1955.

Theatre Research International, autumn 1995.

Quotes By: Lynn Redgrave
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"God always has another custard pie up his sleeve."

Actor: Michael Redgrave
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  • Born: Mar 20, 1908 in Bristol, England, UK
  • Died: Mar 21, 1985 in Denham, England
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '30s-'70s
  • Major Genres: Drama, War
  • Career Highlights: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Innocents, Mourning Becomes Electra
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Biography

The son of British actor Roy Redgrave, Michael Redgrave attended Clifton College and Cambridge University. While teaching high school, Redgrave became involved with amateur theatricals. A professional by 1934, Redgrave made his London debut in Love's Labours Lost in 1936, and that same year appeared in his first film, Hitchcock's The Secret Agent (1936). It was thanks to his leading role in another Hitchcock effort, The Lady Vanishes (1938), that Redgrave achieved stardom. He was excellent in several starring vehicles of the 1940s, and at his very best in his 20-minute turn as a paranoid ventriloquist in Dead of Night (1946). An attempt to become a Hollywood star via Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) was scuttled due to the film's poor box office take, though Redgrave did earn an Oscar nomination for his performance. After starring in The Dam Busters, Britain's most popular 1955 movie release, Redgrave settled into film character roles, continuing all the while to headline on stage. He also wrote and directed several theatrical productions throughout his career, and was the author of four books: the instructional The Actor's Ways and Means, the novel The Mountebank's Tale, and two autobiographies. In 1959, Redgrave was knighted for his achievements in his chosen field. Long married to actress Rachel Kempson, Michael Redgrave was the father of actors Vanessa, Corin and Lynn Redgrave; and the grandfather of actresses Jemma Redgrave, Natasha and Joely Richardson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Michael Redgrave
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Michael Redgrave
Born Michael Scudamore Redgrave
20 March 1908(1908-03-20)
Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
Died 21 March 1985 (aged 77)
Buckinghamshire, England
Spouse(s) Rachel Kempson (1935-1985)

Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.

He twice (1958 and 1963) won Best Actor trophies in the Evening Standard Awards and twice received the Variety Club of Great Britain 'Actor of the Year' Award (in the same years). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952 and was knighted in 1959.

His children, Vanessa Redgrave, Corin Redgrave, and Lynn Redgrave, and grandchildren have also had notable theatre and film acting careers.

Contents

Youth and education

Redgrave was born in Bristol, England the son of the silent film actor Roy Redgrave and the actress Margaret Scudamore. He never knew his father, who left when Michael was only six months old, to pursue a career in Australia. His mother subsequently married Captain James Anderson, a tea planter, but Redgrave greatly disliked his stepfather.[1]

He studied at Clifton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was a schoolmaster at Cranleigh School in Surrey before becoming an actor in 1934. There he directed the boys in Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest, but managed to play all the leading roles himself.[2] The 'Redgrave Room' at the school was later named after him.

Theatre career

Redgrave made his first professional appearance at the Liverpool Playhouse on 30 August, 1934 as Roy Darwin in Counsellor-at-Law (by Elmer Rice), then spent two years with its Liverpool Repertory Company where he met his future wife Rachel Kempson. They married on 18 July, 1935.

1930s

Offered a job by Tyrone Guthrie, his first professional appearance in London was at the Old Vic on 14 September, 1936, playing Ferdinand in Love's Labours Lost. During the 1936-37 season he also played Mr Horner in The Country Wife, Orlando in As You Like It, Warbeck in The Witch of Edmonton and Laertes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His hit of the season was Orlando. Edith Evans was his Rosalind and the two fell very much in love. As he later explained: "Edith always had a habit of falling in love with her leading men; with us it just went rather further."[3] As You Like It transferred to the New Theatre in February 1937 when he again played Orlando.

At the Embassy Theatre in March 1937 he played Anderson in a mystery play, The Bat, before returning to the Old Vic in April, succeeding Marius Goring as Chorus in Henry V. Other roles that year included Christopher Drew in Daisy Fisher's comedy A Ship Comes Home at the St Martin's Theatre in May and Larry Starr in Philip Leaver's comedy Three Set Out at the Embassy in June, before joining John Gielgud's Company at the Queen's Theatre, September 1937 to April 1938, where he played Bolingbroke in Richard II, Charles Surface in The School for Scandal and Baron Tusenbach in Three Sisters.

Other roles included:

Second World War

Once the London theatres were re-opened, after the outbreak of war, he played:

Redgrave joined the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman in July 1941, but was discharged on medical grounds in November 1942. Having spent most of 1942 in the Reserve he managed to direct Lifeline (Norman Armstrong) starring Frank Pettingell at the Duchess Theatre in July; and The Duke in Darkness (Patrick Hamilton) starring Leslie Banks at the St James's Theatre in October, also taking the role of Gribaux.[4]

Resuming his stage career he played/directed:

Post-war years

  • Title role in Macbeth, Aldwych Theatre December 1947; National Theater, New York (NY debut, with Flora Robson as Lady Macbeth) 31 March 1948
  • Captain in The Father (August Strindberg) directed by Dennis Arundell with Freda Jackson as Laura, Embassy Theatre November 1948; and Duchess Theatre January 1949
  • Etienne in A Woman in Love (also co-adapted with Diana Gould and directed) with Margaret Rawlings as Germaine, Embassy April 1949

Joining the Old Vic Company at the New Theatre for its 1949–50 season, he played:

  • Berowne in Love's Labours Lost
  • Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer
  • Rakitin in A Month in the Country
  • His first Hamlet, which he also played at the Zurich Festival, the Holland Festival and at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, June 1950

1950s

Redgrave joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford upon Avon and for the 1951 season appeared as Prospero in The Tempest as well as playing Richard II, Hotspur and Chorus in the Cycle of Histories, for which he also directed Henry IV Part Two. After appearing as Frank Elgin in Winter Journey at the St James's April 1952, he rejoined the Stratford company in 1953 (together with his actress wife Rachel Kempson) appearing as Shylock, King Lear and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, also playing Antony when the company transferred to the Princes Theatre in November 1953 before touring to Holland, Belgium and Paris.

At the Apollo in June 1955 he played Hector in Tiger at the Gates, appearing in the same role at the Plymouth Theatre, New York in October 1955 for which he received the New York Critics Award. While in New York he directed A Month in the Country at the Phoenix Theatre in April 1956, and directed and played the Prince Regent in The Sleeping Prince at the Coronet Theatre in November 1956.

Returning to London in January 1958 he appeared as Philip Lester in A Touch of the Sun (N C Hunter) at the Saville Theatre — Best Actor in the Evening Standard Awards 1958 — before rejoining the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company in June 1958, to play Hamlet and Benedick, also playing Hamlet with the company in Leningrad and Moscow in December 1958 (while his wife Rachel Kempson played Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet).

At the Queen's Theatre in London in August 1959 he played HJ in his own adaptation of the Henry James novella The Aspern Papers. His play was later to be successfully revived on Broadway in 1962, with Wendy Hiller and Maurice Evans, while the 1984 London revival featured his daughter, Vanessa Redgrave, along with Christopher Reeve and Dame Wendy Hiller, this time in the role of Miss Bordereau.

1960s

Roles included:

Returning to England, in July 1962 he took part in the Chichester Festival Theatre's opening season, playing the title role in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya to the Astrov of Laurence Olivier who also directed.

Alongside John Dexter's Chichester staging of Saint Joan, Olivier'sUncle Vanya was first revived in Chichester in 1963 before transferring to the Old Vic as part of the nascent Royal National Theatre's inaugural season, winning rave reviews and Redgrave's second win as Best Actor in the 1963 Evening Standard Awards. "In Redgrave's Vanya you saw both a tremulous victim of a lifetime's emotional repression and the wasted potential of a Chekhovian might-have-been: as Redgrave and Olivier took their joint curtain call, linked hands held triumphantly aloft, we were not to know that this was to symbolise the end of their artistic amity.": Michael Billington[5]

Redgrave played (and co-presented) Lancelot Dodd MA in Arthur Watkyn's Out of Bounds at Wyndham's Theatre in November 1962, following it at the Old Vic with his portrayal of Claudius opposite the Hamlet of Peter O'Toole in 22 October 1963. This Hamlet was in fact the National Theatre's official opening production, directed by Olivier, but Simon Callow has dubbed it "slow, solemn, long", while Ken Campbell vividly described it as "brochure theatre."[6].

In January 1964 at the National he played the title role in Hobson's Choice, which he admitted was well outside his range: "I couldn't do the Lancashire accent and that shook my nerve terribly - all the other performances suffered." While still at the National in June 1964 he also played Halvard Solness in The Master Builder, which he said 'went wrong'. At this time he had incipient Parkinson's disease although he did not know it.[7]

On a happier note, in May-June 1965 Redgrave directed the opening festival of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, including directing and playing Rakitin in A Month in the Country (co-starring with Ingrid Bergman as Natalya Petrovna), and Samson in Samson Agonistes (co-starring with Rachel Kempson as Chorus). He again played Rakitin in September 1965, when his production transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in London.

For the Glyndebourne Festival Opera he directed Werther in 1966 and La Boheme in 1967.

1970s

At the Mermaid Theatre in July 1971 he played Mr Jaraby in The Old Boys (William Trevor) and had an unfortunate experience: "My memory went, and on the first night they made me wear a deaf aid to hear some lines from the prompter and it literally fell to pieces - there were little bits of machinery all over the floor, so I then knew I really couldn't go on, at least not learning new plays."[8]

Nevertheless, he successfully took over the part of Father in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, also touring Canada and Australia in the role in 1972-73. International touring continued in 1974-75 with a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Hollow Crown, visiting major venues in the US and Australia, while in 1976-77 he toured South America, Canada and the UK in the anthology, Shakespeare's People.

Redgrave's final theatre appearance came in May 1979 when he portrayed Jasper in Simon Gray's Close of Play, directed on the Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre by Harold Pinter. It was a silent, seated role, based on Gray's own father who had died a year before he wrote the play. As Gray has said: "Jasper is in fact dead but is forced to endure, as if alive, a traditional English Sunday, helpless in his favourite armchair as his three sons and their wives fall to pieces in the usual English middle-class style, sometimes blaming him, sometimes appealing to him for help and sobbing at his feet for forgiveness, but basically ignoring him. In other words I had stuck him in Hell, which turns out to be 'life, old life itself'."[9]

His final work, in 1975, a narrative of the timeless epic poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poem that Redgrave taught as a young schoolmaster and visualized by producer-director Raul daSilva, received six international film festival prizes of which five were first place in category. This work was to be his last before the onslaught of Parkinson's disease.

Film and television work

Redgrave first appeared on BBC television at the Alexandra Palace in 1937, in scenes from Romeo and Juliet. Notable television performances include voice-overs for The Great War (a history of the first World War using stills and 'stretched' archive film) and the less successful Lost Peace series (BBC Television, 1964 and 1966). Of the latter, Philip Purser wrote: "The commentary, spoken by Sir Michael Redgrave, took on an unremittingly pessimistic tone from the outset." [10]

His first major film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). Redgrave also starred in The Stars Look Down (1939), with James Mason in the film of Robert Ardrey's play Thunder Rock (1943), and in the ventriloquist's dummy episode of the Ealing compendium film Dead of Night (1945).

His first American film role was opposite Rosalind Russell in Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In the 1950s, he starred in the films The Browning Version (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), The Dambusters (1954), and 1984 (1956).

Last years and death

Redgrave died in a nursing home in Denham, Buckinghamshire, in 1985, from Parkinson's disease, one day after his 77th birthday.

Personal life

Family

Michael Redgrave was married to the actress Rachel Kempson for 50 years from 1935 until his death. Their children Vanessa, Corin and Lynn Redgrave, and their grandchildren - Natasha (1963-2009) and Joely Richardson; Jemma and Luke Redgrave; and Carlo Nero - are also involved in theatre or film as actors (except Luke Redgrave and Carlo Nero).

His daughter Lynn created a beautiful one-woman play for herself called "Shakespeare for My Father", in which she was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award. In it, she traces her love for Shakespeare as a way of following and finding her often absent father, whose heart was so fully given over to the theatre. It is remarkably moving, a rather comprehensive lyric memoir about him and about the entire Redgrave family.

Michael Redgrave owned White Roding Windmill from 1937 to 1946.[11] He and his family lived in "Bedford House" on Chiswick Mall from 1945 to 1954. [12] His entry for Who's Who in the Theatre (1981) gives his address as Wilks Water, Odiham, Hampshire.

Bisexuality

The 1996 BBC documentary film Michael Redgrave: My Father, narrated by Corin Redgrave, and based on his book of the same name, discusses Michael's bisexuality in some depth.

Rachel Kempson recounted that, when she proposed to him, Redgrave said that there were "difficulties to do with his nature, and that he felt he ought not to marry". She said that she understood, it didn't matter and that she loved him. To this, Redgrave replied "Very well. If you're sure, we will".

During the filming of Fritz Lang's Secret Beyond the Door... (1948), Redgrave met Bob Michell. They became lovers, Michell set up house close to the Redgraves, and he became a surrogate "uncle" to Redgrave's children (then aged 11, 9 and 5), who adored him. Michell later had children of his own, including a son he named Michael.

Corin helped his father in the writing of his last autobiography. During one of Corin's visits to his father, the latter said "There is something I ought to tell you". Then, after a very long pause, "I am, to say the least of it, bisexual". Corin encouraged him to acknowledge his bisexuality in the book. Michael agreed to do so, but in the end he chose to remain silent about it.

A card was found among Redgrave's effects after his death. The card was signed "Tommy, Liverpool, January 1940", and on it were the words (quoted from W. H. Auden): "The world is love. Surely one fearless kiss would cure the million fevers".

Honours and appointments

Redgrave was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952. He was knighted in 1959.

He was also appointed Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog, Denmark in 1955; was First President of the English Speaking Board, 1953; President of the Questors Theatre, Ealing, 1958; and Hon DLitt (Bristol), 1966.

The Redgrave Theatre in Farnham, Surrey, 1974-1998, was named in his honour.

Selected filmography

Writings

Redgrave wrote four books:

  • The Actor's Ways and Means Heinemann (1953)
  • Mask or Face: Reflections in an Actor's Mirror Heinemann (1958)
  • The Mountebank's Tale Heinemann (1959)
  • In My Mind's I: An Actor's Autobiography Viking (1983) ISBN 0670142336

His plays include The Seventh Man and Circus Boy, both performed at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1935, and his adaptations of A Woman in Love (Amourese) at the Embassy Theatre in 1949 and the Henry James novella The Aspern Papers at the Queen's Theatre in 1959.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Michael Redgrave: My Father, 1996 BBC documentary film narrated by Corin Redgrave, based on his book of the same name; produced and directed by Roger Michell
  2. ^ The Great Stage Stars, Sheridan Morley
  3. ^ The Great Stage Stars, Sherdan Morley
  4. ^ The Great Stage Stars, Sheridan Morley, and Who's Who in the Theatre 1981
  5. ^ State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945 by Michael Billington, Faber (2007) ISBN 9780571210343
  6. ^ The National: 1963-1997 by Simon Callow, Nick Hern Books (1997) ISBN 1854593234
  7. ^ The Great Stage Stars, Sheridan Morley
  8. ^ The Great Stage Stars, Sheridan Morley
  9. ^ An Unnatural Pursuit and Other Pieces by Simon Gray, Faber (1985)
  10. ^ Halliwell's Television Companion Third Edition, Grafton Books (1986)
  11. ^ Farries, Kenneth (1985). Essex Windmills, Millers and Millwrights - Volume Four - A Review by Parishes, F-R. Edinburgh. pp. 121–123. ISBN 0 284 98647 X. 
  12. ^ Roe, William P., "Glimpses of Chiswick's Development, 1999,ISBN 0 9546512 2 6, page 94

External links


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