Shakespeare for My Father
Lynn Redgrave on Parents Rachel Kempson and Sir Micheal Redgrave.
The Redgrave family, often regarded as Theatre Royalty, is one of the most famous families in British theatre history.
In Part Two of this five part series taken from a candid 1993 interview, Lynn Redgrave reminisces about her unusual childhood. In many ways, her parents were not the usual Mummy and Daddy one would expect.
Actor Michael Redgrave was the husband of actress Rachel Kempson. She became known as Lady Redgrave when Sir Michael Redgrave was knighted in 1959. They had three children: Vanessa, the oldest, Corin in the middle, and their youngest child Lynn.
What was it like to come from such a famous theatre family? It must have been surreal.
“Growing up yes. I come from five generations of actors. Yes, there was a lot of actors and it’s hard to say what it is like compared to what it was like for anybody else because of course I only knew my situation. I was born toward the end of the Second World War and though I don’t remember the war, I remember the post war effect of rationing and those sorts of things.”
"My father, by the time I was born, was already a very big star of both stage and screen. He had already made several films, his first being Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. We lived in a big house and while there was food rationing, we nonetheless lived in what would be considered in those days, in kind of a grand way. My parents... neither of them came from illustrious backgrounds. My father was initially raised by his mother who was an actress who had been deserted by his father and he was in a children’s home for a while. Then he had a stepfather who was very sort of remote although he did get him educated and all of that."
"My mother came from a genteel but impoverished family and so in a way I suppose my father was experimenting with his new found life .He was a big star and he was living in the style of a star and it was quite…. intimidating in a way."
"We lived very much a nursery existence. We had our breakfast in the nursery with Nanny and we had our lunch and our tea. When I was very little, the only contact I had with my parents was that Nanny would dress me up, not everyday, but she would dress me in a smart dress and I would go down and have tea with them. Now that was not untypical of those times for a certain class of society. Nonetheless it was a little daunting and I remember it then being sort of scary. The comforting place was the nursery."
So that’s why Nanny is in the show…
"Nanny’s a big figure in my life..."
She must have been like a mother and father to you. I understand your mother's still acting… [Rachel Kempson died in 2003 at age 92.]
"My mother is. Isn’t it wonderful? My mother is 82, about to be 83, and she’s got a new film in March. ( Likely Deja Vu from 1998 in which she played daughter Vanessa's mother) She is very funny. I spoke to her on the phone the other day. I said ' Well now what about this film.?'
' Well' she said, 'I do not think much of the script ' and I said 'Well … so often that’s the case'. I said. 'What’s the part like?' and she said 'Well, I have to mumble in Gaelic' she said. 'I don’t know if I should do it.'
"One can’t say to her at the age of 83 there may not be that many roles coming along. She’s just wonderful and she’s in very good form and I am delighted to say hale and hearty at almost 83."
What does your Mother think of the show?
My mother does not really know about the show. She knows vaguely that I am doing the show and I have not kept it secret from her, but she has not paid an awful lot of attention to it .She’s in England right now and she knows I am going off on tour and I am doing Shakespeare and it has to do with Dad but she hasn’t really given it her full attention nor probably will until she sees it. She may not see it. I don’t know until I take it to England."
