Belated but heartfelt condolences to the incomparable Vanessa Redgrave

On March 18, Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter, Natasha Richardson, died as a result of a skiing accident here in Canada. A tragedy for all concerned, certainly, but my heart broke especially for her mother, the great actress who has always been a friend of literature.

Looking back at what I know of her career, it is obvious there is a terrible irony to some of it. She turned The Year of Magical Thinking into a one-woman show based, of course, on Joan Didion’s medidation on the death of her husband, which was swiftly followed by the death of their only child, a daughter. Because of Natasha’s death, a charitable staging of that show in April in New York has been postponed until October.

In the 2007 film Evening, which I’ve not seen somehow, even though it stars not only Vanessa, but Meryl Streep, Natasha Richardson played the eldest daughter of a character played by her mother, who is dying at the end of the film. A scene that is now doomed never to transpire in real life.

I remember seeing Julia, the film for which she won an academy award, when it first came out. My mother made me a pretty die-hard Lillian Hellman fan. Now, some 30 years later, all I recall of that movie was my amazement at this incredible-looking actress I’d never seen, with hands that looked half a block long, but were so elegant and so intensely expressive.

One of the many reasons I’ve admired Vanessa over the years is that she is politicized, radical, and has the courage to speak out (even while accepting her academy award for Julia – what better place to make a point, when the entire world with access to a television is watching).

Finally, I will never tire of seeing the last minutes of the film version of Ian McEwan’s brilliant novel, Atonement. The book is better, no surprise there, but the final 6 or 7 minutes of the film version is worth sitting through everything that comes before it. Vanessa, as the elderly Briony, is interviewed about her final book. I could watch that scene over and over again and probably will. When I watched it recently, I realized I’d forgotten that it was Anthony Minghella who interviewed the elderly Briony, another sad irony in the career of this titan.

Dear Ms Redgrave, your legions of fans hope to see more of you before too long. In the meantime, we are so sorry for your loss.