Glenda Jackson, Oscar-winning actress and former Labour MP, dies aged 87
Glenda Jackson, the Oscar-winning actress and former Labour MP, has died at the age of 87.
In a statement, her agent Lionel Larner said: “Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London, this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side.
“She recently completed filming The Great Escaper in which she co-starred with Michael Caine.”
Sir Michael Caine and Jackson pictured together for their new film The Great Escaper
Jackson won the Oscar for best actress in 1970 for her performance as a headstrong artist in director Ken Russell’s adaptation of DH Lawrence’s novel Women in Love, and again three years later for romantic comedy A Touch Of Class.
However, she chose not to attend the Hollywood ceremony on either occasion. Despite her successful career in entertainment – she also won two Emmy Awards and a Tony – she said she never had any interest in the social and glamorous aspects of the industry, and devoted herself to politics in the 1990s.
She also once said she would “probably” turn down a damehood if she were to be offered one, because “what does it actually mean?”
Jackson was elected as the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992 and served as a junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 when Sir Tony Blair was prime minister.
However, a return to acting – and awards – came after she stood down as an MP at the 2015 general election. In 2019 she starred as a woman suffering from dementia in Elizabeth Is Missing, and won a TV BAFTA for best actress the following year.
Pictured with her Oscar for Women In Love. Pic: AP
Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for what is now the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, is among those paying tribute following Jackson’s death.
“Devastated to hear that my predecessor Glenda Jackson has died,” she wrote on Twitter. “A formidable politician, an amazing actress and a very supportive mentor to me. Hampstead and Kilburn will miss you Glenda.”
Downing Street described Jackson’s death as “extremely sad news” and said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “thoughts will be with her friends and family at this time”.
Pictured with Hugh Grant during a visit to the set of Notting Hill
Diane Abbott, who became a Labour MP in 1987, described Jackson as a “kind and extremely principled woman” in her tribute on social media.
Labour MP and shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell, who worked for and alongside Glenda Jackson, recalled the “incredibly kind” politician’s humour as she paid tribute.
“This is very sad news. In my early twenties I worked for Glenda, a decade later our MPs offices were next door,” she wrote on Twitter.
“She was always incredibly kind & supportive to me. I will also remember her cutting humour, general disdain at most things, all while smoking!”
Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson in The Romantic Englishwoman
Before her death, Jackson had been reunited with fellow double Oscar-winner Sir Michael Caine, who she last acted with in The Romantic Englishwoman in 1975.
Their upcoming film The Great Escaper is inspired by true events, telling the story of a Second World War veteran who escaped his care home in Hove, East Sussex, to attend a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France.
Born in Birkenhead in 1936, Jackson said she only started acting after she failed her school certificate, leaving her with no option but to start working at the age of 16.
While working at her local Boots store, she joined a friend at the YMCA amateur dramatics society and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She wrote to the prestigious school and was offered a place after auditioning, but could not afford the fees.
A manager at Boots wrote to the county council at the time and they local authority paid for her, paving the way for rise to stardom.
Her big break came in 1964 when director Peter Brook chose Jackson to play Charlotte Corday in his stage production
of Marat/Sade, which was set in a lunatic asylum.
As well as her Oscar-winning performances, Jackson also played Egyptian queen Cleopatra in 1971 for an episode of The Morecambe & Wise Show with comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise.
Other notable film roles included John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday with Peter Finch, and she also portrayed Queen Elizabeth for a second time in Mary, Queen of Scots opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the titular role.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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