Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson CBE (9 May 1936 – 15 June 2023) was an English actress and politician. Over the course of her distinguished career she received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years, initially for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015, following boundary changes.
Glenda Jackson
15 June 2023 (aged 87)
- Actress
- politician
- 1957–1991
- 2015–2023 (as actress)
Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for the romance films Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973), but she did not appear in person to collect either due to work commitments.[2] She also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). Her other notable films include Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Hedda (1975), The Incredible Sarah (1976), House Calls (1978), Stevie (1978) and Hopscotch (1980). She won two Primetime Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC series Elizabeth R (1971). She received both the BAFTA Award and International Emmy Award for her performance in Elizabeth Is Missing (2019).
She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and made her Broadway theatre debut in Marat/Sade (1966). She received five Laurence Olivier Award nominations for her West End theatre roles in Stevie (1977), Antony and Cleopatra (1979), Rose (1980), Strange Interlude (1984) and King Lear (2016), the last being her first role after a 25-year absence from acting, which she reprised on Broadway in 2019. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role in the revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women (2018).
Jackson transitioned her career to politics from 1992 to 2015, and was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate at the 1992 United Kingdom general election. She was a junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 during the first Blair ministry; she later became critical of Tony Blair. After constituency boundary changes, she represented Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010. At the 2010 general election, her majority of 42 votes, confirmed after a recount, was the narrowest margin of victory in Great Britain.[3][4] Jackson stood down at the 2015 general election and returned to acting.
Early life and education[edit]
Glenda May Jackson was born at 151 Market Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, on 9 May 1936. Her mother named her after the Hollywood film star Glenda Farrell.[5] Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Hoylake, also on the Wirral.[6] Her family were very poor and lived in a two-up two-down house with an outside toilet at 21 Lake Place. Her father Harry was a builder, while her mother Joan (née Pearce) worked in a local shop, pulled pints in a pub and was a domestic cleaner.[7][8][9]
The oldest of four daughters, Jackson was educated at Holy Trinity Church of England and Cathcart Street primary schools, followed by West Kirby County Grammar School for Girls in nearby West Kirby. She performed in the Townswomen's Guild drama group during her teens.[8][9][10][11] Jackson made her first acting appearance in J. B. Priestley's Mystery of Greenfingers in 1952 for the YMCA Players in Hoylake.[12] She worked for two years in Boots the Chemists, before winning a scholarship in 1954 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.[13] Jackson moved to the capital to begin the course in early 1955.[14]
Acting career[edit]
1957–1968: Rise to prominence[edit]
In January 1957, Jackson made her professional stage debut in Ted Willis's Doctor in the House at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing.[15] This was followed by Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables, while Jackson was still at RADA,[16] and she began appearing in repertory theatre.[17] She was also a stage manager at Crewe in repertory theatre.[9]
From 1958 to 1961, Jackson went through a period of two and a half years in which she was unable to find acting work. She unsuccessfully auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and undertook what she later described as "a series of soul-destroying jobs". This included waitressing at The 2i's Coffee Bar, clerical work for a large City of London firm, answering phones for a theatrical agent, and a role at British Home Stores. She also worked as a Bluecoat at Butlin's Pwllheli holiday resort on the Llŷn Peninsula in North West Wales, where her new husband and fellow actor Roy Hodges was a Redcoat. Jackson eventually returned to repertory theatre in Dundee, but worked in bars in between acting jobs.[18]
Jackson made her film debut in a bit part in the kitchen sink drama This Sporting Life (1963). A member of the RSC for four years from 1963, she originally joined for director Peter Brook's Theatre of Cruelty season, which included Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1965), where she played an inmate of an insane asylum portraying Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Jean-Paul Marat.[19] The production ran on Broadway in 1965 and in Paris[17] (Jackson also appeared in the 1967 film version). She appeared as Ophelia in Peter Hall's production of Hamlet the same year.[20] Critic Penelope Gilliatt thought Jackson was the only Ophelia she had seen who was ready to play the Prince himself.[21]
The RSC's staging at the Aldwych Theatre of US (1966), a protest play against the Vietnam War, also featured Jackson, and she appeared in its film version, Tell Me Lies.[22] Later that year, she starred in the psychological drama Negatives (1968), which was not a huge financial success, but won her more good reviews.