Rise to Fame
She had the bloodline and still had to earn it. Daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, she trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and ground it out in regional theater before landing the role of Nina in The Seagull (1985), playing opposite her own mother. The London Drama Critics gave her Most Promising Newcomer, which is a loaded phrase when your family owns half the industry. Her career ran parallel tracks from there: serious film work in Patty Hearst and The Handmaid's Tale, and a Tony win for Cabaret in 1998, for which she took dedicated singing lessons because winning wasn't optional.
In the Spotlight
Most audiences knew her from The Parent Trap (1998) and Maid in Manhattan (2002). Critics knew her from the stage. She didn't seem too bothered by the gap. In January 2009, two months before she died, she shared the stage with Vanessa Redgrave in a concert version of A Little Night Music at Studio 54, playing the lead while Vanessa played her mother. They were planning to bring the full production to Broadway. The serious stage career had finally lined up with the right moment.
Side Notes
She appeared alongside Ralph Fiennes and Richard E. Grant in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park in 1984, before either of them had a film career worth mentioning. She was also three generations deep in the same acting tradition: grandmother Rachel Kempson, mother Vanessa, then her. Her father Tony Richardson died of AIDS-related causes in 1991; she spent years afterward raising money for amfAR. Her son Micheal, who was 13 when she died, changed his last name from Neeson to Richardson in 2018.
Final Chapter
Broadway theaters dimmed their lights the night she died. Her liver, kidneys, and heart were all donated. Quebec officials opened debate on mandatory ski helmet laws following her death, citing the absence of a medical helicopter near Mont Tremblant as a contributing factor. Vanessa Redgrave had sung 'Edelweiss' at her bedside while she was on life support.