GLENDA JACKSON, THE ENGLISH ACTRESS & POLITICIAN

Today, The Grandma has received bad news. Glenda Jackson, the British actress and politician passed way yesterday.

Glenda May Jackson (9 May 1936-15 June 2023) was a British actress and politician. 

She was one of the few performers to achieve the American Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Tony Award.

She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hampstead and Kilburn (known as Hampstead and Highgate until 2010) from 1992 to 2015. She was a member of the Labour Party.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for the romance films Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973), but did not appear in person to collect either due to work commitments. She also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). Her other notable performances include Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Hedda (1975), The Incredible Sarah (1976), 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 British Academy Television Award for Best Actress and International Emmy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Elizabeth Is Missing (2019).

Jackson studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She made her Broadway debut in Marat/Sade (1966). She received five Laurence Olivier Award nominations for her West End 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 ceased acting to take on a career in politics from 1992 to 2015, and was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate at the 1992 general election. She was a junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 during the first Blair ministry; she later became critical of 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 of that parliament. Jackson stood down at the 2015 general election and returned to acting.

More information: The Guardian

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. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Hoylake, also on the Wirral. 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 worked in a local shop, pulled pints in a pub and was a domestic cleaner.

Jackson joined the Labour Party in the early 1950s, at the age of 16. Her earlier campaigns were not party political, however. In 1978, she was one of the public figures who lent their name as a sponsor to the Anti-Nazi League. The same year, she appeared in a print advertisement for Oxfam. Jackson was on the executive of the National Association of Voluntary Hostels, and spoke at rallies for the housing charity Shelter. Human rights were also an area of interest, and she joined a demonstration outside the Indonesian Embassy to protest against the detention of political prisoners. She was involved in children's charities, as president of the Toy Libraries Association and as a programme narrator for UNICEF. She also gave time and money to a home for emotionally disturbed children in Berkshire run by former actress Coral Atkins.

More information: The Guardian

 The best theater is trying to tell the truth,
and the best politics is trying to tell the truth.

Glenda Jackson