2023-06-15 17:36:55
Glenda Jackson was one of the most sought-after character actresses on stage and in front of the camera. But the two-time Oscar winner gave up acting for her political career. But not forever.
Glenda Jackson had turned her back on the film business for more than a quarter of a century and devoted herself to politics until she made her surprising comeback as an actress a few years ago. Glenda Jackson will no longer see the premiere of her last film project “The Great Escaper”. The two-time Oscar winner and former Member of Parliament died in London on Thursday after a short illness at the age of 87. Her agent told the PA news agency.
Glenda Jackson was one of the most prominent actresses in Great Britain and was one of the most sought-after stars in Hollywood, especially in the 1970s. The accomplished character actress won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1971 for her role in the drama “Women in Love.” Three years later, she received her second Academy Award for the romantic comedy Dude, you’re great!.
Member of the Royal Shakespeare Company
The Briton, who was born Glenda May Jackson in Birkenhead in north-west England in 1936, had previously attracted attention in the theater and soon after with smaller film and television roles. She left school at 16 and moved to London, where she won a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1957 she made her stage debut, from 1964 Jackson was a member of the ensemble of the famous Royal Shakespeare Company for several years.
After breaking into Hollywood, the ’70s became Jackson’s decade. During this time, she was nominated four times for best actress at the Oscars. Not once did the busy Brit attend the glamorous ceremony in Los Angeles. “I’ve always worked,” she told Entertainment Weekly magazine. The Oscars are anyway “not as important as everyone thinks”. “You don’t play to get an award. I didn’t win (the Oscars). They were given to me.”
In addition, Jackson, who was also celebrated on Broadway, received, among other things, a Golden Globe, three Emmys and a Tony Award. Directly after her acting comeback in the TV drama Elizabeth Is Missing, in which she played a woman with Alzheimer’s disease, she won Best Actress at the 2020 Bafta TV Awards. “As a society, we have to ensure that people who suffer from this disease are well cared for,” she warned in her acceptance speech. Throughout her life she was committed to social issues.
Her marriage to political advisor Roy Hodges, who had their son Dan in 1969, broke up in 1976 after around 20 years. Jackson never remarried. Instead, she was passionate about her job. She was blessed with a strong work ethic growing up, she said. “If you haven’t worked, you haven’t eaten either.”
Criticism of the “Iron Lady”
Besides acting, politics was Jackson’s great passion, perhaps even the greater one. In her mid-50s, Jackson gave up her acting career to run for Labor in the 1992 general election. With success. She moved into the House of Commons, where she stood out as a harsh critic of the political legacy of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives.
Jackson called the policies of the “Iron Lady”, who was British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, “destructive”. The fact that she refused in the House of Commons to pay tribute to Thatcher after her death and instead verbally attacked the deceased again caused a controversy in 2013.
Jackson was also not sparing with criticism of her own party, which belonged to the left wing. Tony Blair, then Labor Prime Minister, felt this when the uncomfortable Jackson spoke out clearly against the invasion of Iraq. She was a member of the British Parliament for more than 20 years. In the late 1990s, she failed in her attempt to become Mayor of London.
In 2015, the British finally withdrew from active politics, but remained politically alert. “I don’t want to be there anymore,” she said in an interview with US television station CBS about the British Parliament. “I’m in the fortunate position where I can sit outside and berate the (politicians) and I do that.”
Tony Award at age 82
Even after leaving Parliament, Glenda Jackson did not hold back on her opinion of former colleagues. “I’ve seen people pacing the aisles of Parliament whose egos would not have been tolerated for 30 seconds in professional theater,” she said in a CBS interview.
A year later, the chain smoker with the deep voice was back on the theater stage, first in London for Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, then on Broadway in Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women”, for which she – then 82 years old – received the Tony Award . She hadn’t originally intended to make films again. “It would never have occurred to me,” Jackson said when she accepted her Bafta trophy in London in 2020, “but then an offer came.”
She made two more films. She stars in the historical romance “A Feast Day” alongside Olivia Colman and Colin Firth. After 47 years, she reunited with Michael Caine for the drama The Great Escaper, which is based on the true story of war veteran Bernard Jordan. In 1975, she filmed The Romantic Englishwoman with Caine. It is not yet known when Glenda Jackson’s last film will hit the cinemas. (dpa)
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