Vanessa Redgrave’s Magical Thinking

Thursday, March 08, 2007

At the age of 70, Vanessa Redgrave shows an inner beauty not possessed by today’s young stars.  She keeps her gray hair pulled back in a bun. She doesn’t wear make up nor does she need to. She has an aura of confidence that can only come from truly knowing your own soul.  She sits for interviews in her modest London apartment, which is adorned with family photos

Redgrave has had a long and lustrous career and is still considered one of the best of all time.  Her starring role in the Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow Up made her a 1960’s icon. She has been nominated for 6 academy awards and won in 1977 for her performance in Julia.  Redgrave has a natural intensity about her that lends itself well to the most extreme character portrayals.  As recently as 2003, she won a best actress Tony award for her portrayal of a morphine addicted woman in Long Days Journey into Night.

Redgrave’s personal views on life is just as intense as those of her characters. She is the founder of the human rights organization, Peace and Progress. She is a long time UNICEF good will ambassador. She supports the Worker’s Revolution Party. Her political views have, at times, crossed the boundaries. In 2003 she demonstrated support for Chechen rebel Ahmed Zakayev. She paid his $80,000 bail when he was arrested in a London airport.

At the moment, Redgrave, is concentrating on Magical Thinking. The Broadway adaptation of the book, Magical Thinking, is the true life story of Joan Didion. The play is centered around the death of Didion’s husband, and how she coped with the loss.  Redgrave said of Didion’s book and the author’s view on loss, “She has said she meant it as a manual for survival. And human beings survive through all sorts of processes, including needing to laugh.. The Year of Magical Thinking, isn’t grim. It’s tragic, but it isn’t grim.”

Only Vanessa Redgrave can pull off this type of story with real humanity.