Glenda Jackson

Glenda May Jackson (born 9 May 1936) is an English actress and former Member of Parliament (MP). She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice: for her role as Gudrun Brangwen in the romantic drama ''Women in Love'' (1970); and again for her role as Vickie Allessio in the romantic comedy '' A Touch of Class'' (1973). She received praise for her performances as Alex Greville in the drama film ''Sunday Bloody Sunday'' (1971) and Elizabeth I in the BBC television serial '' Elizabeth R'' (1971), winning two Primetime Emmy Awards for the latter. In 2018, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role in a revival of Edward Albee's ''Three Tall Women'', becoming one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting in the US.

Jackson took a hiatus from acting to take on a career in politics from 1992 to 2015, and was elected as the Labour Party MP for Hampstead and Highgate in the 1992 general election. She served as a junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 during the government of Tony Blair, later becoming critical of Blair. After constituency boundary changes, she represented Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010. At the 2010 general election, her majority of 42 votes was one of the closest results of the election. Jackson stood down at the 2015 general election, and has since made a successful return to acting.

Early life

Glenda Jackson was born at 151 Market Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire on Saturday 9 May 1936. Her mother named her after the Hollywood film star Glenda Farrell. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Hoylake in the Wirral. Glenda's family were very poor, and lived in a two-up, two-down house at 21 Lake Place with an outside toilet. Her father Harry was a builder, while her mother Joan (née Pearce) worked on the local supermarket checkout, pulled pints in a pub, and was a domestic cleaner.

The oldest of four daughters, Glenda was educated at Holy Trinity Church of England and Cathcart Street primary schools, followed by West Kirby County Grammar School for Girls in nearby West Kirby, and performed in the Townswomen's Guild drama group during her teens. Jackson made her first acting appearance in J. B. Priestley's ''Mystery of Greenfingers'' in 1952 for the YMCA Players in Hoylake. She worked for two years in Boots the Chemists, before winning a scholarship in 1954 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.Jennifer Uglow, et al. ''The Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography.'' London: Macmillan, 1999, p. 276 (US: Boston: Northeastern University Press) Jackson moved to the capital to begin the course in early 1955.

Acting career

1957–1968: Early career

In January 1957, Jackson made her professional stage debut in Ted Willis's ''Doctor in the House'' at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing. This was followed by Terence Rattigan's ''Separate Tables,'' while Jackson was still at RADA,D. Keith Peacock "Jackson, Glenda ay in Colin Chambers (ed) ''The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre'', London: Continuum, 2002 005 p.398. and she began appearing in repertory theatre."Glenda Jackson (1936– )"
in ''Who's Who in the Twentieth Century'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. She was also a stage manager at Crewe in repertory theatre.

From 1958 to 1961, Jackson went through a period of two and a half years in which she was unable to find acting work. She unsuccessfully auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and undertook what she later described as "a series of soul-destroying jobs". This included waitressing at The 2i's Coffee Bar, clerical work for a large City of London firm, answering phones for a theatrical agent, and a role at British Home Stores. She also worked as a Bluecoat at Butlin's Pwllheli holiday resort on the Llŷn Peninsula in North West Wales, where her new husband and fellow actor Roy Hodges was a Redcoat. Jackson eventually returned to repertory theatre in Dundee, but worked in bars in between acting jobs.

Jackson made her film debut in a bit part in the kitchen sink drama ''This Sporting Life'' (1963). A member of the RSC for four years from 1963, she originally joined for director Peter Brook's Theatre of Cruelty season, which included Peter Weiss' ''Marat/Sade'' (1965), where she played an inmate of an insane asylum portraying Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Jean-Paul Marat. The production ran on Broadway in 1965 and in Paris (Jackson also appeared in the 1967 film version). She appeared as Ophelia in Peter Hall's production of ''Hamlet'' the same year. Critic Penelope Gilliatt thought Jackson was the only Ophelia she had seen who was ready to play the Prince himself.

The RSC's staging at the Aldwych Theatre of '' US'' (1966), a protest play against the Vietnam War, also featured Jackson, and she appeared in its film version, ''Tell Me Lies''. Later that year, she starred in the psychological drama '' Negatives'' (1968), which was not a huge financial success, but won her more good reviews.

1969–1980: Film and television

Jackson's starring role in Ken Russell's film adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's ''Women in Love'' (1969) led to her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Brian McFarlane, the main author of ''The Encyclopedia of British Film'', wrote: "Her blazing intelligence, sexual challenge and abrasiveness were at the service of a superbly written role in a film with a passion rare in the annals of British cinema."

In the process of gaining funding for ''The Music Lovers'' (1970) from United Artists, Russell explained it as "the story of a homosexual who marries a nymphomaniac," the couple being the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) and Antonina Miliukova, played by Jackson. The film received mixed reviews in the U.S.; the anonymous reviewer in ''Variety'' wrote of the two principals, "Their performances are more dramatically bombastic than sympathetic, or sometimes even believable." ''The Music Lovers'' was a box-office success in Europe, reaching No. 1 in the UK's weekly rankings in March 1971. It was the first of four films starring Jackson which would top the box-office charts in her native country. Jackson was initially interested in the role of Sister Jeanne in '' The Devils'' (1971), Russell's next film, but turned it down after script rewrites and deciding that she did not wish to play a third neurotic character in a row.

Jackson had her head shaved to play Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC
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