Like many great actors, Redgrave
viewed films as the less pleasant
part of the profession
Sir Michael Redgrave CBE
B: 20 March 1908
D: 21 March 1985 aged 77
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Ever the accomplished theatrical actor but reluctant film star, Michael Redgrave was as much at
home with the works of Shakespeare, as with those of Chekhov.
Yet this man of the stage took to the world of film, making his first credited appearance in
the 1938 Hitchcock classic THE LADY VANISHES, a role that he maintained he only signed
up to in order to support his family.
Yet his image of the respected family man was shattered in 1995 when his son Corin published
a biography on his father that talked openly of Redgrave's homosexuality. Intensely private,
he kept such liaisons out of the public eye but not from his family, with his wife and
noted actress Rachel Kempson having known from the onset the true nature of his sexuality.
Indeed it was she who held the family together, whilst Redgrave entered into a number of
long-term relationships, in which lovers became known as uncles, including fellow actor Bob
Mitchell, who Redgrave met whilst filming Fritz Lang's appropriately titled SECRET
BEYOND THE DOOR / 1948 and who in turn would came to save his son Corin
from drowning during a family excursion to Bexhill-on-Sea.
Afflicted with Parkinson's disease during the latter years of his life, his final stage
appearance was in the aptly titled 1979 National Theatre production CLOSE OF PLAY.
Author of four published works, his final book IN MY MIND'S EYE / 1983 co-written with Corin,
was to have acknowledged his homosexual side, but in the end Redgrave preferred
to refrain from making any references to such.
He exited stage left in March 1985 aged 77, leaving a remarkable legacy of stage
and film work, let alone a theatrical dynasty, behind him.
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