The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (351 page)

She did
Cursed
(05, Wes Craven);
Home of the Brave
(06, Irwin Winkler); in the TV series
Gray’s Anatomy
(06);
Black Snake Moan
(07, Craig Brewer);
Penelope
(08, Mark Palansky);
Speed Racer
(08, the Wachowski brothers);
New York, I Love You
(09, Shunji Iwai);
Afterlife
(09, Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo).

Miranda Richardson
, b. Southport, England, 1958
Is it because of her innate, nearly shifty, capacity to alter herself and to become anyone, that Miranda Richardson is not yet as famous as she deserves? There are actresses with far more obvious claims to a place in this book—Ashley Judd, Barbara Hershey, and Ellen Barkin, I suppose—yet the declared principles of opinion and particularity (not to say eccentricity) opt for Ms. Richardson instead. Why? She is brilliant, wayward, unpresumptuous, and uncanny. If that verdict seems an exaggeration, I suspect that any American observer would be taken further aback still to see all of her British TV work—to say nothing of her performances in radio drama, the medium she prefers and finds most challenging.

Her debut in film remains her best-known work: as white as bone china, wounded in lipstick, flighty, cold, desperate, and bitter as Ruth Ellis in
Dance With a Stranger
(85, Mike Newell). Since then, she has done
The Innocent
(85, John Mackenzie); she was wildly funny, sexy, and disturbing in
After Pilkington
(86, Christopher Morahan);
The Death of the Heart
(86, Peter Hammond);
Underworld
(86, George Pavlou);
Eat the Rich
(87, Peter Richardson); riveting in
Empire of the Sun
(87, Steven Spielberg), playing an upper-class woman whose façade of respectability breaks down;
Ball Trap on the Cote Sauvage
(89, Jack Gold);
The Bachelor
(90, Roberto Faenza);
The Fool
(90, Christine Edzard); as the crippled agent in
Twisted Obsession
(90, Fernando Trueba); wonderfully composed, yet seething, in
Old Times
(90, Simon Curtis);
Enchanted April
(91, Newell); two faces of terrorism in
The Crying Game
(92, Neil Jordan); the wife in
Damage
(92, Louis Malle)—the best character in the film, yet the most disruptive, for she reminded us of emotional reality. Her confrontation scene with Jeremy Irons blows away the entire flimsy and vicious proceedings. She was also in
Century
(93, Stephen Poliakoff); and the maddened wife in
Tom and Viv
(94, Brian Gilbert), which won her an Oscar nomination.

The nomination seemed to act as an advertisement in America—so her range widened:
Fatherland
(94, Christopher Menaul);
The Night and the Moment
(94, Anna Maria Tato); as the kidnapped woman in
Kansas City
(96, Robert Altman);
The Evening Star
(96, Robert Harling); the writer in
Swann
(96, Anna Benson Gyles);
Saint-Ex
(97, Anand Tucker);
The Designated Mourner
(97, David Hare); Pamela Flitton in
A Dance to the Music of Time
(97, Christopher Morahan and Alvin Rakoff); mysteriously cast but a delight in
The Apostle
(98, Robert Duvall);
Merlin
(98, David Winning);
St. Ives
(99, Harry Hook);
Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang
(99, George Bloomfield);
The Big Brass Ring
(99, George Hickenlooper); the voice of Mrs. Tweedy in
Chicken Run
(00, Peter Lord and Nick Park);
Get Carter
(00, Stephen Kay); the queen in
Snow White
(01, Caroline Thompson); Vanessa Bell in
The Hours
(02, Stephen Daldry).

She gave a stunning tripartite performance in
Spider
(02, David Cronenberg); as Queen Mary in
The Lost Prince
(03, Steven Poliakoff);
The Actors
(03, Conor McPherson);
The Rage in Placid Lake
(03, Tony McNamara);
Falling Angels
(03, Scott Smith);
The Prince & Me
(04, Martha Coolidge).

Her versatility continues to amaze: she was Eva Braun in the spoof
Churchill: The Hollywood Years
(04, Richardson);
The Phantom of the Opera
(04, Joel Schumacher); in the TV series
Absolutely Fabulous;
Rita Skeeter in
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(05, Newell);
Gideon’s Daughter
(06, Poliakoff); the Lady of the Lake in
Merlin’s Apprentice
(06, David Wu); the mother in
Wah-Wah
(06, Richard E. Grant);
Provoked
(07, Jag Mundhra); in the “Bastille” episode of
Paris, Je
T’Aime
(07, Isabel Coixet); as a black-magic Irish biddy in
Puffball
(07, Nicolas Roeg);
Fred Claus
(07, David Dobkin);
Southland Tales
(07, Richard Kelly);
Spinning into Butter
(07, Mark Brokaw); the Duchess of Kent in
Young Victoria
(09, Jean-Marc Vallée); as Barbara Castle in
Made in Dagenham
(10, Nigel Cole).

Natasha Richardson
, (1963–2009), b. London
As the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, and an heir to all the other Redgraves, Natasha Richardson is loaded with credentials. To which one must add marriage to Liam Neeson (who appeared with her on the New York stage in
Anna Christie
). Her stage career had been widely celebrated, and it seemed natural that she should make movies. But she had not made much more than a wounded, pained impact, playing several notable but not very appealing victims. Above all, she lacked her mother’s extraordinary sense of need for air, light, and pretending.

She made her debut in
Ellis Island
(84, Jerry London); as Mary Shelley in
Gothic
(86, Ken Russell);
A Month in the Country
(87, Pat O’Connor); as
Patty Hearst
(88, Paul Schrader)—it should have been a tour-de-force, but never escaped ordeal; touching as Oppenheimer’s mistress in
Fat Man and Little Boy
(89, Roland Joffe);
The Handmaid’s Tale
(90, Volker Schlöndorff);
The Favor, the Watch and the Very Big Fish
(91, Ben Lewis);
The Comfort of Strangers
(91, Schrader);
Past Midnight
(91, Robin B. Armstrong); in the Elizabeth Taylor role in a TV remake of
Suddenly, Last Summer
(92, Richard Eyre);
Zelda
(93, O’Connor) for TV;
Nell
(94, Michael Apted);
Widow’s Peak
(94, John Irvin); unaccountably, in
The Parent Trap
(98, Nancy Myers);
Haven
(01, John Gray) for TV;
Blow Dry
(01, Paddy Breathnach);
Waking Up in Reno
(02, Jordan Brady).

And then a hit on Broadway in
Cabaret; Maid in Manhattan
(02, Wayne Wang);
Asylum
(04, David Mackenzie);
The White Countess
(04, James Ivory);
Evening
(07, Lajos Koltai), working with her mother; and
Wildchild
(09, Nick Moore), in which she is a school headmistress.

In March 2009, in Quebec, she had an accident while skiing. It seemed minor. She was lucid, then she collapsed. Two days later she was dead.

Sir Ralph Richardson
(1902–83), b. Cheltenham, England
Richardson was like a character from an H. G. Wells novel: a young insurance clerk in Brighton, who on receiving a legacy decided to study first art, and then acting. His career was distinguished, but his abstracted charm lacked worldliness, and led him into the most inconsequential work without apparently noticing. The career looks dreamy and disorganized, just as, in interviews, he often seemed to forget who or where he was. It is a puzzle sometimes whether he was really a dolt, intermittently powered by grace, or a very wise man gently turning aside praise and curiosity. But of all the noble English actors he was the most mysterious, the one in whom character and performance were most intriguingly confused. As the years go by, only genius and pity can explain his work in
The Fallen Idol, The Heiress
, and
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
.

The pattern of his film work is haphazard, showing how little he considered it. There are several periods of absence, too many awful pictures, and only a few that did him justice:
The Ghoul
(33, T. Hayes Hunter);
Friday the 13th
(33, Victor Saville);
The Return of Bulldog Drummond
(33, Walter Summers);
Java Head
(33, J. Walter Reuben);
The King of Paris
(33, Jack Raymond);
Bulldog Jack
(35, Walter Forde);
Things to Come
(36, William Cameron Menzies);
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
(36, Lothar Mendes);
Thunder in the City
(37, Marion Gering);
South Riding
(38, Saville);
The Divorce of Lady X
(38, Tim Whelan);
The Citadel
(38, King Vidor);
Q Planes
(39, Whelan);
The Four Feathers
(39, Zoltan Korda);
The Lion Has Wings
(39, Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, and Michael Powell);
On the Night of the Fire
(39, Hurst);
The Day Will Dawn
(42, Harold French);
The Silver Fleet
(42, Vernon Sewell);
The Volunteer
(43, Powell), about the Fleet Air Arm, in which he himself served;
School for Secrets
(46, Peter Ustinov); as Karenin opposite Vivien Leigh in
Anna Karenina
(48, Julien Duvivier); magnificent as the gentle butler in
The Fallen Idol
(48, Carol Reed); to America excelling as Dr. Sloper in
The Heiress
(49, William Wyler) and nominated for the supporting actor Oscar;
Outcast of the Islands
(51, Reed);
Home at Seven
(51), which he directed personally, though without trace; as the De Havilland figure in
The Sound Barrier
(52, David Lean);
The Holly and the Ivy
(52, George More O’Ferrall); as Buckingham in
Richard III
(55, Laurence Olivier);
Smiley
(56, Anthony Kimmins);
Our Man in Havana
(59, Reed); as Sir Edward Carson in
Oscar Wilde
(60, Gregory Ratoff); as an inane British military administrator in
Exodus
(60, Otto Preminger); very touching as Tyrone in
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
(62, Sidney Lumet);
The 300 Spartans
(62, Rudolph Maté);
Woman of Straw
(63, Basil Dearden);
Dr. Zhivago
(65, Lean);
The Wrong Box
(66, Bryan Forbes); as Gladstone in
Khartoum
(66, Dearden);
The Midas Run
(69, Alf Kjellin);
The Bed-Sitting Room
(69, Dick Lester);
The Looking Glass War
(69, Frank R. Pierson);
Oh! What a Lovely War
(69, Richard Attenborough);
The Battle of Britain
(69, Guy Hamilton);
David Copperfield
(70, Delbert Mann), as Micawber;
Eagle in a Cage
(70, Fielder Cook);
Who Slew Auntie Roo?
(71, Curtis Harrington); as George IV in
Lady Caroline Lamb
(72, Robert Bolt); and
Rollerball
(75, Norman Jewison).

He was a voice in the animated picture
Watership Down
(78, Martin Rosen);
Charlie Muffin
(79, Jack Gold);
Time Bandits
(81, Terry Gilliam);
Dragonslayer
(81, Matthew Robbins); doing Charles Laughton in
Witness for the Prosecution
(82, Alan Gibson);
Wagner
(83, Tony Palmer);
Invitation to the Wedding
(83, Joseph Brooks);
Give My Regards to Broad Street
(84, Peter Webb); and, finally, sublime as the aristocratic grandfather ready for monkey business in
Greystoke
(84, Hugh Hudson), including sliding downstairs on a silver tray.

Tony Richardson
(Cecil Antonio Richardson) (1928–91), b. Shipley, England
1959:
Look Back in Anger
. 1960:
The Entertainer
. 1961:
Sanctuary
. 1962:
A Taste of Honey; The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
. 1963:
Tom Jones
. 1965:
The Loved One
. 1966:
Mademoiselle
. 1967:
The Sailor from Gibraltar
. 1968:
The Charge of the Light Brigade; Red and Blue
(s). 1969:
Laughter in the Dark; Hamlet
. 1970:
Ned Kelly
. 1973:
Dead Cert
. 1974:
A Delicate Balance
. 1976:
Joseph Andrews
. 1978:
A Death in Canaan
(TV). 1981:
The Border
. 1984:
The Hotel New Hampshire
. 1986:
Penalty Phase
(TV). 1988:
Shadow on the Sun
(TV). 1990:
The Phantom of the Opera
(TV);
Blue Sky
(unreleased); “Hills Like White Elephants,” an episode in
Women and Men: Stories of Seduction
(TV).

Richardson died relatively young, from AIDS, to exceptional and eloquent regret among those who loved him. It is also clear from the two volumes of John Osborne’s autobiography that Richardson was a rare character—a wit, a very good stage director (he was at the Royal Court in London in its great years), a provocateur, a man of parties and affairs, an enthusiast, and a tennis maniac. I look forward to a brilliant biography (Richardson’s autobiography is disappointing), so that I can more easily digest the travesty he made of John Irving’s
Hotel New Hampshire
. The last years do not persuade me to moderate my opinion—that he was a wretched film director. But I should add that he was the father (by marriage to Vanessa Redgrave) of two good actresses—Natasha and Joely Richardson.