Lynn Rachel Redgrave was an English actress. Redgrave gained international recognition for her star turn in the romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966). She performed often onstage in Britain and in the U.S.
Background
Redgrave was born on March 8, 1943 in Marylebone, London, United Kingdom. She was the younger sister of Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, and the granddaughter of silent-film actor Roy Redgrave.
Education
Redgrave studied at the Queensgate School, after that she attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Redgrave's screen debut came in Tom Jones in 1963, the same year she was chosen as a founding member of the National Theatre (later the Royal National Theatre) under Sir Laurence Olivier.
Redgrave performed often onstage in Britain and in the U.S., where she made her Broadway debut in 1967 in Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy.
In films This Is Living: How I Found Health and Happiness and Diet For Life, Lynn Redgrave lets readers into her secret past of compulsive eating and dieting, which was a product of her childhood upbringing and exacerbated by her stressful career. Delighting in her triumph over these bad habits with the help of the Weight Watchers weight control program, for which she was the television spokesperson from 1984 to 1992, Redgrave shares useful information about the program, relates how it affected her health and happiness, and lists her favorite Weight Watchers recipes and menu plans.
In the first half of the This Is Living, Redgrave describes how it was difficult for her—the shy and chubby youngest child—to live in the shadow of her naturally thin and outgoing siblings, Vanessa and Corin, who would become well-known actors like their parents. She also remarks on how the English diet is replete with fatty dishes, such as roast beef and pudding made with lard, and on her own secret overeating habits.
Redgrave talks about her career as an actress, which gained momentum when she accepted the title role in the film Georgy Girl, about a plump young woman who is starved for affection. She had spent years trying to get away from that “lumpy” image, both on the stage and screen and in real life. Finally after years of abusing her body with fad diets, slimming drugs, and overeating binges, Redgrave joined Weight Watchers using her married name Lynn Clark, and a transformation began. After some years and much success in the program, Redgrave became the program’s television spokesperson. About This Is Living, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly remarked, “The book has occasional glints of the sunny charm and humor that have endeared Redgrave to audiences.”
Her other films include Georgy Girl (1966); The Happy Hooker (1975); Shine (1996); Gods and Monsters (1998), The White Countess (2005); and the animated My Dog Tulip (2009).
Among Redgrave’s other notable stage roles were Vicky in Charles Lawrence’s My Fat Friend (1974) and Masha in an acclaimed 1990 production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters opposite her own sister, Vanessa, and her niece Jemma Redgrave.
She was also known for Shakespeare for My Father, a one-woman show she wrote and performed often over the years, as well as for George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1976) and W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife (2006).
In addition, Redgrave starred in several television series, notably House Calls (1979–81) and Rude Awakening (1998–2001), shortly after that she became a U.S. citizen.
She narrated just about twenty audiobooks, such as Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library.
Redgrave wrote several solo plays, such as Nightingale (in which she imagined the life of her maternal grandmother) and Rachel and Juliet (a tribute to her actress mother).
Redgrave narrated somewhere about 20 audiobooks, including Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library.