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Vale: Glenda Jackson

British acting royalty and former MP Glenda Jackson, best known for A Touch of Class, Elizabth R and Turtle Diary, has died.

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British acting royalty and former MP Glenda Jackson, best known for A Touch of Class, Elizabth R and Turtle Diary, has died, aged 87.

In a statement her agent Lionel Larner said: “Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side. She recently completed filming The Great Escaper in which she co-starred with Michael Caine.”

Jackson was bitten by the acting bug after joining an amateur dramatics group as a teen. She won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963.

After making her name on stage, she won her first Oscar for playing a headstrong artist in Ken Russell’s film of DH Lawrence’s novel Women in Love.

Her second Academy Award came three years later for romantic comedy A Touch of Class, after she famously showed off her comedy skills in a guest appearance as Cleopatra on Morecambe and Wise.

She played Elizabeth I in Elizabeth R and playing the queen opposite Dame Vanessa Redgrave in 1971 film Mary, Queen of Scots.

Credits also included Sunday Bloody Sunday, Hedda, Stevie, Turtle Diary, The Patricia Neal Story, Z Cars, Sakharov, Murder of Quality, The House of Bernarda Alba, and there were numerous stage performances.

She joined the House of Commons as a Labour MP in north London from 1992 to 2015. That included two years as a junior transport minister in Tony Blair’s New Labour government from 1997, making her screen comeback in the TV drama Elizabeth Is Missing in 2020.

She once drew a link between acting and politics, saying, “The best theatre is about trying to find and tell the truth. It’s not about covering up. It’s not about playing games. It’s not about hiding. It’s not about pretending you’re something you’re not.

“It’s trying to find what it is to be a human being and why we behave towards each other in the ways that we do. And I think that the best politics is trying to find the truth as well.”

Source: BBC,

One Response

  1. An absolute force of nature. I so admired Glenda when I was growing up. Her acting was fearless, powerful and indelible. Glenda Jackson made her mark. Big time. She will be missed.

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