Vanessa Redgrave was born on 30th January 1937 in London, England.  She is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson and the elder sister of Corin and Lynn.  She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960's.

She made her film debut in 1958 playing Pamela Gray in Behind the Mask in which her father played Sir Arthur Benson Gray.  In 1963 she played Rosalind in a TV production of As You Like It; but it was in 1966 when she made her first notable film appearance in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment when she played Leonie Delt, a role for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Film Award and an Oscar for Best Actress in 1967.  In the same year she also played Anne Boleyn in the Oscar-winning film A Man For All Seasons, this time working alongside her brother Corin who played William Roper. Vanessa acted several times opposite David Hemmings and she evoked rank passion as the cool London swinger, Jane, in Blow Up in 1966, and as a prim English woman during the Crimean War in The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1968 - a film which also starred her mother, Rachel Kempson, her brother Corin, and was directed by her then husband, Tony Richardson.  She married Tony in 1962 but by 1967 they were divorced after his affair with Jeanne Moreau.  Vanessa and Tony had two daughters - Natasha and Joely Richardson.

In 1967 Vanessa made four films - Tonite Let's All Make Love in London in which she played herself; Red and Blue playing the role of Jacky; The Sailor from Gibraltar as Sheila; and perhaps the most important Camelot playing Guenevere (a role which earned her a Golden Globe nomination), during which she became involved with Franco Nero who played Lancelot, and later had a son by him - Carlo.  In 1968 Vanessa played Nina in The Sea Gull, and Isadora Duncan in Isadora a role for which she won an National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1969 and was once again nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar.  1969 saw Vanessa in three films - Vacation; A Quiet Place in the Country; and Oh! What a Lovely War playing Sylvia Pankhurst with her father and her brother. In 1970 she narrated The Body and in 1971 she played Andromache in The Trojan Women.  It was during this year that she also played opposite Glenda Jackson's Queen Elizabeth in Mary, Queen of Scots as Mary of Scotland; she also played Mary in Dropout and Sister Jeanne in The Devils.

In 1973 Vanessa appeared on our TV screens once more in Katherine Mansfield and in 1974 she returned to the large screen as Mary Debenham in Murder on the Orient Express.  More films followed, including Out of Season (1975); The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1976); The Palestinian (1977); Julia (1977) for which she won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; Yanks (1979); Agatha (1979); and Bear Island (1979).  In 1980 Vanessa made her first American TV debut as concentration-camp survivor Fania Fenelon in the Arthur Miller-scripted TV movie Playing for Time a part for which she won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in 1981.

In 1982 Vanessa again appeared on TV in My Body, My Child as Leenie Cabrezi, and in 1983 in the mini-series Wagner; returning to films in Sing Sing (1983); The Bostonians (1984) earning both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Actress for her superb portrait of a lesbian feminist enamored of her suffragette protégé.  In 1985 she was Jean Travers in Wetherby; Sarah Cloyce in Three Sovereigns for Sarah; and Nancy in Steaming.  In 1986 she appeared on TV in Peter the Great as Sophia; and as the transsexual Renee/Richard in Second Serve, which earned her yet another Golden Globe nomination an Emmy nomination; and in 1987 she play Peggy Ramsay in Prick Up Your Ears - for which she received both Golden Globe and BAFTA Film Award nominations in 1988.  In 1987 Vanessa played Mrs Carlyle in Comrades and in 1988 she once again appeared in A Man For All Seasons, this time as Lady Alice More.  More films followed, including Consuming Passions (1988); Romeo-Juliet (1990); Stalin's Funeral (1990); The Plague Sowers (1990); The Ballad of the Sad Café as Miss Amelia (1991); Howards End (1992) for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ruth Wilcox; Sparrow (1993) playing Sister Agata; A Wall of Silence (aka Black Flowers) (1993) as Kate Benson; as Lydia in Mother's Boys (1993); as Nivea in The House of Spirits (1993); as Irina Shapira in Little Odessa (1994); A Month by the Lake (1995) which earned her another Golden Globe nomination for her role as Miss Bentley; Mission Impossible (1996) playing the role of Max; as herself in Looking for Richard (1996); as Wilde's mother in Wilde (1997); as Skelly in Déjà Vu, with her mother Rachel Kempson (1997); as Elsa Lubing in Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997); as Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs Dalloway (1997); as Robin Lerner in Deep Impact (1998); Celebrity (1998); Lulu on the Bridge playing Catherine Moore (1998); Uninvited (1999); Toscano (1999); as Maddy in A Rumour of Angels (1999); as Kalsan in Mirka (1999); An Interesting State (1999); as Dr Wick in Interrupted Girl (1999); and as Countess LaGrange in The Cradle Will Rock (1999).

Other television appearances include Lady Torrance in Orpheus Descending (1990) - a role which she also played on stage in London and New York in 1989; Empress Elizabeth in Young Catherine (1991) for which she was nominated for an Emmy in 1992; Blanche Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991) with sister Lynn; Dr Angela Bead in Great Moments in Aviation (1993); Florence Latimer in They (1993); Anna Lenke in Down Came a Blackbird (1995); Nancy Shaffell in Two Mothers for Zachary (1996); Graziella Luciano in the mini-series Bella Mafia (1997) which earned her another Golden Globe nomination in 1998; and finally If These Walls Could Talk 2 (1999).  In 1969 Vanessa appeared in the Morecambe and Wise Show.

In 1973 Vanessa appeared on stage at The Phoenix Theatre, London in a Noel Coward play, Design for Living, playing Gilda opposite Jeremy Brett and John Stride as her two lovers in a manage a trois.  In the late 1980's Vanessa co-starred on-stage with her sister Lynn and her niece Jemma Redgrave in Chekhov's Three Sisters.  In 1993 Vanessa, Corin and his wife Kika formed The Moving Theatre Company.  In 1994/95 Vanessa appeared in New York in a two-woman show called Vita and Virginia in which she played Vita Sackville-West to Eileen Atkins's Virgina Woolf.  Vanessa returned to the London stage at the end of October 1999 to play Carlotta Gray in the Noel Coward play Song at Twilight, starring alongside Corin and Kika.  In the Spring of 2000 Vanessa took on the role of Prospero in The Tempest at the Globe Theatre; and in September 2000 she played Lyubov Andreyevna, alongside brother Corin who played brother Leonid Andreyevich and Roger Allam as Lopakhin, in Trevor Nunn's production of The Cherry Orchard at the Royal National Theatre.

During March and April 2000, Vanessa was heard on BBC Radio 4 in the new serialisation of Virgina Woolf's classic novel To the Lighthouse.  Vanessa was joined by Eileen Atkins and Juliet Stevenson.

In the Spring of 2002 Vanessa returned to our television screens in the new BBC drama, A Lonely War, about Sir Winston Churchill starring Albert Finney as Churchill with Vanessa Redgrave playing his wife Clemmie. Derek Jacobi played the then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, with whom Churchill clashed over independence for India. Other cast-members included Jim Broadbent as Churchill's friend Desmond Morton, Ronnie Barker as Churchill's manservant, Hugh Bonneville as Ivo Pettifer and Celia Imrie as Churchill's secretary.

In February 2002 Vanessa starred alongside her daughter, Joely Richardson, when she returned to the West End stage in to play Lady Windermere in the Peter Hall production of Lady Windermere's Fan. The play also starred Jack Davenport, Googie Withers, David Yelland. This was the first time that Vanessa and Joely have appeared on stage together.

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PHOTO GALLERY

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• Vanessa in A Quiet Place in the Country - 1967

• Vanessa with Tony Richardson Charge of the Light Brigade - 1968

• Vanessa in black sleeveless top

• Vanessa sitting by the river in a white dress and hat

• Vanessa laying on the grass

• Black and white photo of Vanessa

• Vanessa as Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs Dalloway - 1997

• Vanessa with Corin and Kika Markham - 1999

• Vanessa Redgrave

• Mrs Dalloway - 1997

• Vanessa at Noel Coward's desk

• Vanessa with Eileen Atkins and Juliet Stevenson in To the Lighthouse - 2000

• Vanessa with Joan Collins