Actress talks frankly about her checkered career

LOS ANGELES - A chat with Lynn Redgrave guarantees a fascinating trip down the most exclusive byways of the acting world over the last half-century.

When Redgrave drops first names like "Noel" and "Edith," it's assumed you know whom she's talking about - Noel Coward and Edith Evans, of course. She worked with them both, and boy, does she have some tales to tell.

Redgrave is in town to do what she loves best: a juicy character role in a classic stage play (in this case, Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest"). Director Peter Hall's staging, produced by his company in collaboration with Britain's Theatre Royal Bath, opened Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. for a seven-week run before hitting the road for a small tour. 

Working with Hall is a special thrill for Redgrave. She was inspired to become an actress after seeing his production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in Stratford as a young girl. "I saw it 17 times," she recalled. "It was mesmerizing." It helps one's storytelling prowess, of course, to be part of a legendary acting dynasty. The Redgraves are the British Barrymores: Lynn, her famous sister, Vanessa, and her actor brother, Corin, are all children of Michael Redgrave (1908-85). Tall and handsome, he was both a popular leading man and an adept character actor who enjoyed a long and rewarding career on film and stage. His wife of almost 50 years, Rachel Kempson, was an accomplished actress. Their children's thespian offspring include Vanessa's daughters, Natasha and Joely Richardson, and Corin's daughter, Jemma Redgrave.

One of Lynn Redgrave's first memories of Wilde's "Earnest" involves her father, who played Jack Worthing in Anthony Asquith's well-admired 1952 film version.

"I remember seeing it when it first came out," she recalled. "I must have been about 9 or 10." She laughed and explained that such highbrow fare wasn't unusual for the Redgrave children. "My first play ever was `Hamlet' when I was about 4 or 5. We were exposed to challenging theater from a very young age."

When she was cast as Lady Bracknell in Hall's production, Redgrave was tempted at first to take another look at her father's film, then decided against it.

"I thought, `No, I don't think I will. I know exactly what Edith did (Evans played Lady Bracknell in the movie), and I don't want to be reminded of that right now."

Redgrave has great respect for Evans, but she acknowledged that collaborating with the legendary British actress was no walk in the park.

"I worked with Edith and Noel Coward in (Coward's play) Hay Fever.' She didn't like other women. She was very threatened, particularly (with) the younger women: me and Maggie Smith. I was given this wonderful big white feather to hold in the party scene. When she saw it, (she) was terribly frightened about being upstaged. She said,Oh, you're not going to be waving that around, are you?'"

Fortunately, Redgrave had an ally in Coward, whom she called "Dad."

"I adored him and he seemed to adore me, too. At the costume call I rushed up and said, Dad, do you like my feather?' He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said,It's absolutely brilliant!' I knew she wasn't going to cross him."

Redgrave, who shares her father's rangy and regal bearing, has a long film resume that, despite its ups and downs, includes a sprinkling of the most offbeat yet memorable films of the past 40 years: "Tom Jones"; the title character in "Georgy Girl" (a role that nabbed her an Oscar nomination in 1967); "Shine"; and "Gods and Monsters."

Those roles were complemented by lots of stage and TV work, including a handful of turns on the small screen (one of her favorite characters was Trudy Frank, the hard-drinking, cynical mother of a washed-up actress, in Showtime's "Rude Awakenings"). It's a pretty impressive track record for a self-confessed shy person who wasn't expected to go into the family profession.

"My father was very encouraging to Vanessa and Corin. I was the youngest. He absolutely didn't expect me to be an actress and was quite floored by my desire to become one."

After seeing Hall's inspiring production of "Twelfth Night" in 1958, Lynn announced to her family that she intended to go to acting school. Her father said nothing, but "I don't think he thought it was a very good plan," she recalled.

"I later read in his autobiography that when he came to see me do `Heartbreak House' in drama school, he (had) some trepidation over what I would be like. He worried that I was so quiet and shy - which is odd, because he was shy, so why would shyness get in one's way?" Her father was impressed by her performance, Redgrave said, "but I had to read his book to find that out."

The Redgraves' family life was remarkable for its lack of actor-y excess, Lynn recalled. It's a quality that continues to this day. Despite everyone's busy careers (they occasionally overlap - Redgrave was thrilled to work on "The White Countess," the most recent Merchant/Ivory film, with sister Vanessa and niece Natasha), very little of the Redgraves' extended-family get-togethers involve shop talk.

"It's not quite as flamboyant as `The Royal Family' (the 1920s play that many said characterized the Barrymores' high-drama home life). When I go to England and various family members gather at my sister's flat, I'm sure it's like when other (families) get together. A lot of the talk is about our children or our grandchildren. We like to eat and drink and laugh like other people. Every now and then we talk about being in Shanghai in a movie, but that's the only difference."

Redgrave is candid and unflinching about her life and career. Her recent struggle with cancer is a matter of public record, thanks to her daughter Annabel Clark's 2004 photo book, "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery From Breast Cancer."

The actress admits she was naive after being Oscar-nominated for "Georgy Girl," an accomplishment that wasn't repeated until 1998 for her performance as Hanna in "Gods and Monsters." She once thought she would never recover from a long mid-career slump.

"In my extreme ignorance of such things, I thought you just have to have a great part in a movie and you're up for an Oscar. It took me 32 years to get another nomination. I learned in the intervening years that those things don't fall off trees."

Redgrave's lean years included forgettable flicks such as "The Happy Hooker" and "Disco Beaver From Outer Space." But things took a sudden turn for the better in 1996, when "Shine" was released.

"My entire film career was completely resuscitated by Shine,' a small Australian film by an unknown director about a crazy pianist that nobody had ever heard of. I thought,It'll be nice to be in front of a camera again; I haven't made a film in six years. Nobody will see it.'

"When I left Australia, I felt I'd blown it - that I didn't know how to act on film anymore. It wasn't until I saw it that I thought, `Actually, by God, I think I'm in a masterpiece!' I wasn't expecting it, and that made it all the sweeter."

Within three years, Redgrave was attending the Oscar ceremony as a nominee for "Gods and Monsters."

"What's been lovely for me about coming through the dark time ... is that Shine' andGods and Monsters' meant that there was no longer such a thing as typecasting for me. My characters don't look or sound like each other. I've finally got that wonderful thing I wanted as a young actor, which is to disappear into completely different people."

After "Georgy Girl," Redgrave was offered "ungainly unwed moms with prams." After "The Happy Hooker," her mailbox was full of scripts that featured madams and prostitutes.

"Now it's not like that at all. There's no limitation on the type of person that I'm asked to play. That's just so much fun!"

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(c) 2006, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.