Obituary: Natasha Richardson

Mar 19 2009 Liverpool Daily Post

NATASHA RICHARDSON was a member of one of the UK’s great theatrical dynasties.

The 45-year-old daughter of Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson, she appeared in several Hollywood films but was best known for her work on the stage.

Her sister is actress Joely Richardson, and she was married to Irish film star Liam Neeson, with whom she had two sons.

Mr Neeson was filming in Canada when his wife had the accident that led to her death.

The couple met while she was playing the title role in Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie on Broadway in 1993 and married a year later.

Speaking of her marriage, she once told The Independent: “We have a joke that I see the glass half full and he sees it half empty. He’s more laid back, happy to see what happens, whereas I’m a doer and I plan ahead. The differences sometimes get in the way but they can be the very things that feed a marriage too.”

Born in May, 1963, Richardson was educated at St Paul’s Girls School in London and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Her extensive experience on stage included a number of Shakespearean roles, among them Ophelia in Hamlet and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In 1986, she won the London Drama Critics’ most promising newcomer award for her performance as Nina in The Seagull alongside her mother.