Glenda Jackson

Glenda Jackson Headshot

Actress • Politician

Birth Date: May 9, 1936

Death Date: June 15, 2023

Birth Place: Birkenhead, England, UK

RADA-trained Glenda Jackson was shaped by her work with the Royal Shakespeare Company which she joined in 1964 and specifically by director Peter Brook's experimental Theatre of Cruelty season that year and its Antoine Artaud-influenced improvisational games. She won acclaim for her chilling performance as an asylum inmate portraying Danton's murderer Charlotte Corday in the 1965 London and New York productions of "Marat/Sade," staged by Brook.

And although she made a brief screen appearance as an extra in "This Sporting Life" (1963), her first significant film work was reprising the role of Corday in Brook's 1967 screen version of "Marat/Sade," perhaps auguring the many neurotics she has so brilliantly portrayed on stage and film.

Plain-featured but striking looking, with a gift for conveying blistering disgust or contempt with her curled lip, her clipped, almost spitting delivery and her cold stare, Jackson has nonetheless played a wide range of roles from queens, romantics, seductresses and sensualists to independent women and intellectuals; she has excelled at portraying high-strung, strong-willed and sexually rapacious women in notable films by such directors as Ken Russell ("The Music Lovers" 1971), John Schlesinger ("Sunday, Bloody Sunday" 1973) and Joseph Losey ("The Romantic Englishwoman" 1975). Jackson won two Best Actress Oscars, for her roles in Russell's D.H. Lawrence adaptation, "Women in Love" (1970) and for her change of pace performance in Melvin Frank's light romantic comedy "A Touch of Class" (1973). She also won two Emmys for her portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from youth to old age on the series "Elizabeth R" (shown in the USA on PBS in 1972).

Jackson made an assured switch to middle-aged roles in the mid-1970s, beginning with the Hepburn-Tracy style comedy, "House Calls" (1978), opposite Walter Matthau. In 1992, Jackson won a seat in the British Parliament as a member of the Labour Party and retired from acting.

Glenda Jackson died on June 15, 2023 in London, England at the age of 87.

Credits

Glenda Jackson Remembers... Elizabeth R

Self
Show
2023

The Great Escaper

Actor
Irene Jordan
Movie
2023

This Cultural Life

Self
Show
2021

This Cultural Life

Guest
Show
2021

Write Her Story

Host
Show
2021

Peter Brook

Voice
Show
2021

Mothering SundayStream

Actor
Older Jane Fairchild
Movie
2021
78%

Fault Lines: Money, Sex and Blood

Actor
Constance
Show
2020

Elizabeth Is MissingStream

Actor
Maud
Movie
2019
93%

Trust Morecambe & Wise

Self
Show
2019

Morecambe and Wise in America

Self
Show
2018

Miranda: Morecambe & Wise and Me

Guest
Show
2017

Blood, Sex and Money

Actor
Show
2015

The Late Show With Stephen ColbertStream

Guest
Talk
2015

Les classiques du cinéma

Actor
Show
2014

Late Night With Seth MeyersStream

Guest
Talk
2014

Desert Island Discs Revisited

Guest
Show
2014

Drama on 4

Actor
Constance
Show
2012

CBS This Morning

Guest
Show
2012

The Jonathan Ross ShowStream

Guest
Talk
2011

The One Show

Guest
Show
2006

Popcorn

Guest
Show
2005

Theater Talk

Guest
Show
1996

A Murder of Quality

Actor
Ailsa Brimley
Movie
1991

The Rainbow

Actor
Anna Brangwen
Movie
1989

King of the Wind

Actor
Queen Caroline
Movie
1989

Salome's Last Dance

Actor
Herodias/Lady Alice
Movie
1988

Strange Interlude

Actor
Nina Leeds
Movie
1988

Business as Usual

Actor
Babs Flynn
Movie
1987

Negocios Normales

Actor
Movie
1987

Beyond Therapy

Actor
Charlotte
Movie
1987

Doombeach

Actor
Miss
Movie
1985

Turtle Diary

Actor
Neaera Duncan
Movie
1985

Sakharov

Actor
Yelena Bonner
Movie
1984

And Nothing but the Truth

Actor
Sophie
Movie
1982

The Return of the Soldier

Actor
Movie
1982

The Patricia Neal Story

Actor
Patricia Neal
Movie
1981

El Espía más Grande del Mundo

Actor
Movie
1980

Rayuela

Actor
Movie
1980

HopscotchStream

Actor
Isobel
Movie
1980
81%

H.E.A.L.T.H.

Actor
Isabella Garnell
Movie
1980

CBS News Sunday Morning

Guest
News
1979

Lost and Found

Actor
Tricia
Movie
1979

Dos Amores En Conflicto

Actor
Movie
1979

House Calls

Actor
Ann Atkinson
Movie
1978

Stevie

Actor
Stevie Smith
Movie
1978

The Class of Miss MacMichael

Actor
Conor MacMichael
Movie
1978

The Incredible Sarah

Actor
Sarah Bernhardt
Movie
1976

Nasty Habits

Actor
Sister Alexandra
Movie
1976

Una Mujer Romántica

Actor
Movie
1975

Une Anglaise romantique

Actor
Movie
1975

The Maids

Actor
Solange
Movie
1975

Hedda

Actor
Hedda Gabler
Movie
1975

The Romantic Englishwoman

Actor
Elizabeth
Movie
1975

Il sorriso del grande tentatore

Actor
Sister Geraldine
Movie
1974

The Nelson Affair

Actor
Lady Hamilton
Movie
1973

The Triple Echo

Actor
Alice
Movie
1973

A Touch of ClassStream

Actor
Vickie Allessio
Movie
1973
85%

Elizabeth RStream

Actor
Queen Elizabeth I
Miniseries
1971

Un Domingo Tenebroso

Actor
Movie
1971

Domingo, Maldito Domingo

Actor
Movie
1971

The Music Lovers

Actor
Nina (Antonina Milyukova)
Movie
1971

Mary, Queen of Scots

Actor
Queen Elizabeth
Movie
1971
67%

The Boy Friend

Actor
Rita (uncredited)
Movie
1971

Sunday Bloody SundayStream

Actor
Alex Greville
Movie
1971
87%

Women in Love

Actor
Gudrun Brangwen
Movie
1969
83%

The Morecambe and Wise Show

Guest
Show
1968

Negatives

Actor
Vivien
Movie
1968

Opus

Actor
Charlotte Corday
Movie
1967

Marat/Sade

Actor
Charlotte Corday
Movie
1967

The Wednesday Play

Actor
Cathy
Show
1964

The Ed Sullivan ShowStream

Guest
Variety Show
1948

News aboutGlenda Jackson