Corin William Redgrave was a British actor, director, author, and political activist.
Background
Corin William Redgrave was born on July 16, 1939 in Marylebone, London, United Kingdom. He was part of the third generation of a theatrical dynasty spanning four generations. The only son and middle child of Sir Michael and Rachel Kempson Redgrave. Corin was the brother of Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave.
Education
Redgrave was educated at Westminster School and King's College of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Corin Redgrave has enjoyed a long and successful career dating from the early 1960s. He played a wide range of character roles on film, television and stage.
His professional acting debut was at the Royal Court Theatre in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1962. On stage he was also noted for performances by Shakespeare, such as "Much Ado About Nothing", "Henry IV, Part 1", "Antony and Cleopatra", and "The Tempest", and by Noël Coward in a highly successful revival of "A Song At Twilight".
On screen he is best known for his roles in such acclaimed and diverse films as "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) as Thomas More's son-in-law; "David Copperfield" (NBC, 1970) as Steerforth; William Roper, "Excalibur" (1981) as the doomed Cornwall, "In the Name of the Father" (1993) as the corrupt lead police investigator, "Persuasion" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994) as Hamish, the fiancée of Andie MacDowell's character.
He also took the lead part of Sir George Grey in the New Zealand TV miniseries "The Governor" (1977).
Corin Redgrave wrote a play called "Blunt Speaking", in which he performed at the Minerva Theatre between July and August 2002.
In 2005 Redgrave had been playing the lead in "King Lear" with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London when he suffered a severe heart attack. He returned to the stage in 2008 in a highly praised portrayal of Oscar Wilde in the one-man-play "De Profundis". In 2009 he starred in "Trumbo", which opened only hours after the death of his niece, Natasha Richardson.
Corin Redgrave died on April 6, 2010 in St George's Hospital in Tooting, South West London, United Kingdom.
Redgrave was a lifelong activist in far-left extremist politics. With his elder sister Vanessa, he was a prominent member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party. Later, after the collapse of the WRP, he was involved with the Marxist Party, which the two siblings founded.
Both Redgrave and his second wife, Kika Markham, expressed support for activist group Viva Palestina, led by British MP George Galloway, attempting to break the siege of the Gaza Strip. He was also a defender of the interests of the Romani people.
Interests
Music.
Connections
His first marriage was to Deirdre Deline Hamilton-Hill (1939-1981). They had a daughter, actress Jemma Redgrave, and a son, Luke, a camera operator and production assistant. Redgrave and Hamilton-Hill divorced in 1975.
Redgrave's second wife was Kika Markham. They married in 1985 in Wandsworth, London, and remained together until Redgrave's death. The couple had two sons, Harvey (born 1979) and Arden (born 1983).