R.I.P. Glenda Jackson, two-time Oscar winning actor and politician
Veteran actor Glenda Jackson died at age 87 after a "brief illness," according to her agent
Glenda Jackson, the Oscar-award-winning actor who spent more than two decades in British parliament, has died, according to a statement from her agent. She was 87 years old.
Jackson “died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side,” her agent Lionel Larner told the BBC on Thursday. “She recently completed filming The Great Escaper in which she co-starred with Michael Caine.”
The veteran thespian began her career in a local YMCA drama group in her hometown of Birkenhead, eventually winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, per the BBC. She developed a flourishing stage career, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company and later appearing on Broadway with a critically acclaimed starring role in Marat/Sade. She would return to the theater again and again throughout her life, staging her return to acting after her long political hiatus with a powerhouse performance as King Lear at the Old Vic in 2015 and later winning a Tony Award for the Broadway revival of Three Tall Women in 2018.
Jackson proved just as formidable onscreen. She was one of, if not the most lauded performer of the 1970s, taking home her first Oscar for Women In Love in 1971, nabbing another nomination for Sunday Bloody Sunday and earning an Emmy for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth R in 1972, winning a second Oscar for A Touch Of Class in 1974, and a final Oscar nomination for Hedda in 1976. (She was also nominated at the Golden Globes for 1976’s The Incredible Sarah and 1978’s Stevie.)
After years of commanding the stage and screen, Jackson retired from acting in 1992 to serve as a representative of the Labour Party in British parliament. In her long career in government, she served as a junior transport minister under Prime Minister Tony Blair, though she later became an outspoken critic of Blair and his involvement in the invasion of Iraq. She was also notably scathing in her evaluation of late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom she said “had inflicted heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon the country” (via the BBC).
After more than 20 years in politics, Jackson stepped down in 2015 and returned to acting in a variety of critically acclaimed projects, including the limited series Elizabeth Is Missing, for which she won her second BAFTA and Emmy awards.
While she was impressively decorated, Jackson herself was not particularly impressed by these accomplishments, not even attending the Academy Awards any of the times she was nominated (“I was always working,” she explained). “I jib at the idea that I won them. I did nothing apart from what the job I was given,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2016. “If there was a winner, it was the people who voted for me. My sardonic view is that they’re not as important as everyone thinks they are. I never went into a film thinking, ‘Oh gosh, if I do this slightly differently I might win something.’”
Per The Associated Press, Jackson is survived by her son, Dan Hodges. R.I.P.