Best Known As: Literary Theater Professional,  Film Actor,  Television Actor

Gist:  Vanessa Redgrave CBE (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. She is also a social activist for human rights and has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 1995. She made her stage debut in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on both London's West End and Broadway winning both Tony and Olivier Awards. She has also starred in more than 50 films, including Camelot, The Loves of Isadora, Julia (for which she won the Academy Award), Playing for Time (for which she won an Emmy Award), Mission Impossible and Mrs. Dalloway. She was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Life Facts:  Later film roles of note include those of suffragette Olive Chancellor in The Bostonians (1984, a fourth Best Actress Academy Award nomination), transsexual tennis player Renée Richards in Second Serve (1986); Mrs. Wilcox in Howards End (1992, her sixth Academy Award nomination, this time in a supporting role); crime boss Max in Mission: Impossible (1996, when discussing the role of Max, DePalma and Cruise thought it would be fun to cast an actor like Redgrave; they then decided to go with the real thing); Oscar Wilde?s mother in Wilde (1997); Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway (1997); and Dr. Sonia Wick in Girl, Interrupted (1999). Many of these roles and others, garnered her various accolades.

Her performance as a lesbian grieving the loss of her longtime partner in the HBO series If These Walls Could Talk 2 earned her a Golden Globe for ?Best TV Series Supporting Actress? in 2000, as well as earning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries. This same performance also led to an ?Excellence in Media Award? by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The award honours ?a member of the entertainment community who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people?. In 2005, Redgrave joined the second season cast of the hit FX series Nip/Tuck, portraying Dr. Erica Noughton, the mother of Julia McNamara, who is played by her real life daughter Joely Richardson. She also made appearances in the third season and will appear in the shows sixth season this fall. In 2006, Redgrave starred opposite Peter O'Toole in the acclaimed film Venus. A year later, Redgrave starred in Evening and the acclaimed Atonement, in which she garnered a Broadcast Film Critics Association award nomination for her performance that only took up seven minutes of screen time. In 2008, Redgrave appeared as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id - Identity of the Soul. The performance is due to tour worldwide, this year tens of thousands turned out to see the event as it toured the West Bank.

In 2009, it was announced Redgrave would star in a television remake of BBC's The Day of the Triffids, which also stars her daughter, Joely. It would be the fourth collaboration Redgrave would have with her. In the midst of losing her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Redgrave signed on to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Ridley Scott's version of Robin Hood, which began filming shortly after Natasha's death. Redgrave would later withdraw from the film due to personal reasons. The part was given to her Evening co-star Eileen Atkins. She then agreed to star in Letters to Juliet opposite her husband Franco Nero and most recently signed on to appear as Volumnia in Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut of William Shakespeare's Coriolanus, which begins filming in Serbia starting January 2010.

Career Facts:  Highlights of Vanessa 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 the cool London swinger, Jane, in 1966?s Blowup; her spirited 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 of Scotland in Mary, Queen of Scots.

Later film roles of note include those of suffragette Olive Chancellor in The Bostonians (1984, a fourth Best Actress Academy Award nomination), transsexual tennis player Renée Richards in Second Serve (1986); Mrs. Wilcox in Howards End (1992, her sixth Academy Award nomination, this time in a supporting role); crime boss Max in Mission: Impossible (1996, when discussing the role of Max, DePalma and Cruise thought it would be fun to cast an actor like Redgrave; they then decided to go with the real thing); Oscar Wilde?s mother in Wilde (1997); Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway (1997); and Dr. Sonia Wick in Girl, Interrupted (1999). Many of these roles and others, garnered her various accolades.

Her performance as a lesbian grieving the loss of her longtime partner in the HBO series If These Walls Could Talk 2 earned her a Golden Globe for ?Best TV Series Supporting Actress? in 2000, as well as earning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries. This same performance also led to an ?Excellence in Media Award? by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The award honours ?a member of the entertainment community who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people?. In 2005, Redgrave joined the second season cast of the hit FX series Nip/Tuck, portraying Dr. Erica Noughton, the mother of Julia McNamara, who is played by her real life daughter Joely Richardson. She also made appearances in the third season and will appear in the shows sixth season this fall. In 2006, Redgrave starred opposite Peter O'Toole in the acclaimed film Venus. A year later, Redgrave starred in Evening and the acclaimed Atonement, in which she garnered a Broadcast Film Critics Association award nomination for her performance that only took up seven minutes of screen time. In 2008, Redgrave appeared as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id - Identity of the Soul. The performance is due to tour worldwide, this year tens of thousands turned out to see the event as it toured the West Bank.

In 2009, it was announced Redgrave would star in a television remake of BBC's The Day of the Triffids, which also stars her daughter, Joely. It would be the fourth collaboration Redgrave would have with her. In the midst of losing her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Redgrave signed on to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Ridley Scott's version of Robin Hood, which began filming shortly after Natasha's death. Redgrave would later withdraw from the film due to personal reasons. The part was given to her Evening co-star Eileen Atkins. She then agreed to star in Letters to Juliet opposite her husband Franco Nero and most recently signed on to appear as Volumnia in Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut of William Shakespeare's Coriolanus, which begins filming in Serbia starting January 2010.