: The Detainees Speak" After training at London's
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Redgrave made her professional debut in a 1962 production of ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. Following a tour of Billy Liar'' and
repertory work in
Dundee, Redgrave made her
West End debut at the
Haymarket, in
N. C. Hunter's
The Tulip Tree with
Celia Johnson and
John Clements. Redgrave was invited to join the
National Theatre for its inaugural season at the
Old Vic, working with such directors as
Laurence Olivier,
Franco Zeffirelli and
Noël Coward in roles like Rose in
The Recruiting Officer, Barblin in
Andorra, Jackie in
Hay Fever, Kattrin in
Mother Courage, Miss Prue in
Love for Love and Margaret in
Much Ado About Nothing, which kept her busy for the next three years. During that time, Redgrave appeared in films such as
Tom Jones (1963),
Girl with Green Eyes (1964),
The Deadly Affair (1966), and the title role in
Georgy Girl (also 1966, and which featured her mother, Rachel Kempson). For the last of these roles, she gained the
New York Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. In 1967, Redgrave made her Broadway debut in
Black Comedy with
Michael Crawford and
Geraldine Page. London appearances included
Michael Frayn's
The Two of Us with
Richard Briers at the
Garrick,
David Hare's
Slag at the Royal Court and
Born Yesterday, directed by
Tom Stoppard at
Greenwich in 1973. Redgrave returned to Broadway in 1974, in
My Fat Friend. There soon followed
Knock Knock with
Charles Durning, ''
Mrs. Warren's Profession (for a Tony nomination) with Ruth Gordon and Saint Joan. During the 1985–86 season, she appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert and Jeremy Brett in Aren't We All?'', and with
Mary Tyler Moore in
A. R. Gurney's
Sweet Sue. In 1983, Redgrave played
Cleopatra in an American television version of
Antony and Cleopatra opposite
Timothy Dalton. She was in
Misalliance in Chicago with
Irene Worth (earning the Sarah Siddons and Joseph Jefferson awards),
Twelfth Night at the American Shakespeare Festival,
California Suite,
The King and I,
Hellzapoppin',
Les Dames du Jeudi,
Les Liaisons Dangereuses and
The Cherry Orchard. In 1988, Redgrave narrated a dramatised television documentary,
Silent Mouse, which told the story of the creation of the Christmas carol
Silent Night. She starred with
Stewart Granger and
Ricardo Montalbán in a Hollywood production of
Don Juan in Hell in the early winter of 1991. With her sister Vanessa as Olga, Redgrave returned to the London stage playing Masha in
Three Sisters in 1991 at the
Queen's Theatre, London, and later played the title role in a television production of
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? again with her sister. Highlights of Redgrave's early film career also include
The National Health,
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask),
The Happy Hooker and
Getting It Right. In the United States, she was seen in such television series as
Teachers Only,
House Calls,
Centennial and
Chicken Soup. Redgrave also starred in
BBC productions such as
The Faint-Hearted Feminist,
A Woman Alone,
Death of a Son,
Calling the Shots and
Fighting Back. She played Broadway again in
Moon Over Buffalo (1996) with co-star
Robert Goulet and starred in the world premiere of
Tennessee Williams'
The Notebook of Trigorin, based on
Anton Chekhov's
The Seagull. Redgrave won the
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in
Talking Heads. Redgrave became well-known in the United States after appearing in the television series
House Calls, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Redgrave was fired from the series after she insisted on bringing her child to rehearsals so as to continue a breastfeeding schedule. A lawsuit ensued but was dismissed a few years later. Following that, Redgrave appeared in a long-running series of television commercials for
H. J. Heinz Company, then the manufacturer of the weight loss foods for
Weight Watchers, a Heinz subsidiary. Her signature line for the ads was "This Is Living, Not Dieting!" Redgrave wrote a book of her life experiences with the same title, which included a selection of Weight Watchers recipes. The autobiographical section later became the basis of her one-woman play
Shakespeare for My Father. In 1989, Redgrave appeared on Broadway in
Love Letters with her husband
John Clark, and thereafter they performed the play around the country, on one occasion for the jury in the
O. J. Simpson case. In 1993, Redgrave appeared on Broadway in the one-woman play
Shakespeare for My Father, which Clark produced and directed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 1993, Redgrave was elected president of the
Players' Club. In 2005, Redgrave appeared at
Quinnipiac University and
Connecticut College in the play
Sisters of the Garden, about the sisters
Fanny and Rebekka Mendelssohn and
Nadia and
Lili Boulanger. She was also reported to be writing a one-woman play about her battle with breast cancer and her 2003
mastectomy, based on her book ''Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer'' with photos by her daughter Annabel and text by Redgrave herself. In September 2006, Redgrave appeared in
Nightingale, the U.S. premiere of her new one-woman play based upon her maternal grandmother Beatrice, at Los Angeles'
Mark Taper Forum. Redgrave also performed the play in May 2007 at Hartford Stage in
Hartford, Connecticut. In 2007, she appeared in an episode of
Desperate Housewives as Dahlia Hainsworth, the mother of
Susan Delfino's boyfriend Ian Hainsworth. In 2009, Redgrave was inducted into the
American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Voice work Redgrave narrated approximately 20 audiobooks, including
Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia by
C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio and
Inkheart by
Cornelia Funke for Listening Library. ==Personal life==