Glenda Jackson: The Biography

by Chris Bryant (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $20.82

  The full story of Glenda Jackson's astonishing journey from Boots shop assistant to double-Oscar-winning actress with a triumphant stage career, and her re-invention of herself as a politician. * In 1964 she became a star of the theatre playing the insane, sexually tormented Charlotte Corday in Peter Brook's The Marat/Sade. She went on to portray sexually aggressive women for Ken Russell, and gained a reputation for taking her clothes off -- an image deeply at odds with her puritanical private life. * With Oscars for Women in Love and A Touch of Class, her biggest box-office hit, Glenda Jackson established herself as the darling of the film industry -- she is reputedly one of Britain's top 200 richest women. Subsequently, she worked in films of intermittent quality, and became increasingly difficult to work with. By the 1980s she appeared almost exclusively on the stage, reinforcing her reputation as a supremely intelligent actress. But she became unhappy with the ephemeral nature of acting, and increasingly involved in left-wing politics. * It took precision engineering to convince the Hampstead and Highgate Labour Party that she was more than a celebrity actress. She won through, and rose to become Junior Minister for Transport under Tony Blair. * As actress or MP, Glenda Jackson continues to intrigue the public, and in her appearances there shines through a contradictory, sultry and evasive woman.