Michael Redgrave
| Sir Michael Redgrave CBE |
|
|---|---|
Portrait taken by Allan Warren in 1978
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| Born |
Michael Scudamore Redgrave 20 March 1908 Bristol, United Kingdom |
| Died | 21 March 1985 (aged 77) Denham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom |
| Cause of death | Parkinson's disease |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | |
| Years active | 1936–75 |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Parent(s) |
Roy Redgrave Margaret Scudamore |
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.
Redgrave was born in Bristol, England, the son of the silent film actor Roy Redgrave and actress Margaret Scudamore. He never knew his father, who left when he was only six months old to pursue a career in Australia and died when Redgrave was thirteen. His mother subsequently married Captain James Anderson, a tea planter, but Redgrave greatly disliked his stepfather.
He studied at Clifton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Clifton College's theatre, The Redgrave Theatre, is named after him. He was a schoolmaster at Cranleigh School in Surrey before becoming an actor in 1934. There he directed the boys in Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest, but managed to play all the leading roles himself. The "Redgrave Room" at the school was later named after him. In the new Guildford School of Acting building which opened in January 2010, there is the "Sir Michael Redgrave Studio".
Redgrave made his first professional appearance at the Playhouse in Liverpool on 30 August 1934 as Roy Darwin in Counsellor-at-Law (by Elmer Rice), then spent two years with its Liverpool Repertory Company where he met his future wife Rachel Kempson. They married on 18 July 1935.
Offered a job by Tyrone Guthrie, he made his first professional appearance in London at the Old Vic on 14 September 1936, playing Ferdinand in Love's Labours Lost. During 1936–37 he also played Mr Horner in The Country Wife, Orlando in As You Like It, Warbeck in The Witch of Edmonton and Laertes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His hit of the season was Orlando. Edith Evans was his Rosalind and the two fell very much in love. As he later explained: "Edith always had a habit of falling in love with her leading men; with us it just went rather further."As You Like It transferred to the New Theatre in February 1937 when he again played Orlando.
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