Glenda Jackson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Glenda Jackson CBE
Jackson in 1971
Born	Glenda May Jackson (1936-05-09)9 May 1936 Birkenhead, England
Died	15 June 2023(2023-06-15) (aged 87) Blackheath, London, England
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actress politician
Years active	1952–1992 2015–2023 (acting)
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Roy Hodges ​ ​ (m. 1958; div. 1976)​
Children	Dan Hodges
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport
In office 6 May 1997 – 29 July 1999
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	John Bowis
Succeeded by	Keith Hill
Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn
In office 9 April 1992 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Geoffrey Finsberg
Succeeded by	Tulip Siddiq

Glenda May Jackson (9 May 1936 – 15 June 2023) was a famous English actress and politician. She was one of the few performers to win the "Triple Crown of Acting" in America. This means she won two Academy Awards (Oscars), three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. Queen Elizabeth II made her a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1978.

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice. These were for the films Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973). She also won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). Glenda Jackson also played Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC series Elizabeth R (1971), winning two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Jackson studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She stopped acting from 1992 to 2015 to work in politics. She was elected as a Labour Party MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992. She was a transport minister from 1997 to 1999. After leaving politics in 2015, she returned to acting.

Glenda Jackson's Early Life

Glenda Jackson was born on 9 May 1936, in Birkenhead, England. Her mother named her after the Hollywood actress Glenda Farrell. Her family was quite poor. Her father, Harry, was a builder, and her mother, Joan, worked in a shop and as a cleaner.

Glenda was the oldest of four daughters. She went to Holy Trinity Church of England and Cathcart Street primary schools. Later, she attended West Kirby Grammar School for Girls. As a teenager, she performed in a local drama group. Her first acting role was in 1952. She worked at a pharmacy for two years before winning a scholarship in 1954. This allowed her to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.

Her Acting Career

Starting Out: 1957–1968

In January 1957, Glenda Jackson made her first professional stage appearance. This was in a play called Doctor in the House in Worthing. She then started performing in "repertory theatre." This is where a group of actors performs different plays each week.

For two and a half years, from 1958 to 1961, Glenda found it hard to get acting jobs. She took on many different roles, like waitressing and office work. She even worked as a "Bluecoat" at a Butlin's holiday resort. Eventually, she returned to repertory theatre in Dundee.

Her first small film role was in This Sporting Life (1963). From 1963, she was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for four years. She played a character in Marat/Sade (1965), which was also made into a film in 1967. She also played Ophelia in Hamlet that same year.

Film and TV Success: 1969–1980

Glenda Jackson became a big star after her role in the film Women in Love (1969). This role won her her first Academy Award for Best Actress.

She played Antonina Miliukova, the wife of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in The Music Lovers (1970). This film was very popular in Europe. Glenda also shaved her head to play Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC series Elizabeth R (1971). This performance won her two Primetime Emmy Awards. She also played Queen Elizabeth in the film Mary, Queen of Scots (1971).

Jackson in a trailer for The Devil Is a Woman (1973)

In 1971, she won a BAFTA Award for her role in Sunday Bloody Sunday. She was very popular, and British cinemas voted her the 6th most popular star that year.

Glenda Jackson also appeared in comedy sketches with the famous duo Morecambe and Wise. Their Christmas special in 1971 featured her as Cleopatra. Her comedy skills led to her starring in the romantic comedy A Touch of Class (1973) with George Segal. This film was a big hit and earned her a second Academy Award for Best Actress.

She continued to work in theatre, playing the lead in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. A film version, Hedda (1975), also earned her an Oscar nomination. In 1978, she had another hit film in the United States called House Calls, co-starring Walter Matthau. This was her biggest box-office success in the U.S.

In 1980, she appeared on The Muppet Show, where she played a pirate captain who takes over the Muppet Theatre.

Later Acting Roles: 1980–1992

In 1981, Glenda Jackson returned to Broadway in a play called Rose. She received a Tony nomination for her role. In September 1983, a theatre in Birkenhead was named "The Glenda Jackson Theatre" in her honour.

She continued to perform in plays, including Strange Interlude (1985) and Phèdre (1984). In 1989, she appeared in the film The Rainbow. The same year, she played Martha in a Los Angeles production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

Return to Acting: 2015–2023

After 23 years away from acting, Glenda Jackson returned in 2015. She took on a role in a BBC Radio 4 series. In late 2016, she returned to the stage, playing the main role in William Shakespeare's King Lear at the Old Vic Theatre in London. She was nominated for a Best Actress award for this role.

Jackson on Broadway, March 2019

In 2018, Jackson went back to Broadway in a play called Three Tall Women. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for this performance. She played King Lear again on Broadway in 2019.

In 2019, Glenda Jackson returned to television drama after 27 years. She played an elderly grandmother with dementia in Elizabeth Is Missing on BBC One. For this, she won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and an International Emmy Award for Best Actress.

Before she passed away, Glenda Jackson had finished filming The Great Escaper. In this film, she starred with Michael Caine as his wife, Irene.

In July 2022, the British Film Institute celebrated her film and television career with a special month of screenings.

Her Political Career

Glenda Jackson joined the Labour Party when she was 16, in the early 1950s. She supported various charities and human rights causes. She was involved in campaigns against Apartheid in South Africa and spoke at rallies for housing charities.

Joining the Labour Party

Over the years, Glenda Jackson was asked to stand for Parliament several times. In 1989, she was approached by the Hampstead and Highgate Labour Party. Even though she had never been to a local party meeting, she won the vote to become their candidate.

Jackson said she felt Britain was being "destroyed" by the policies of the prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. She wanted to do "anything that was legal" to oppose them.

In Parliament

Glenda Jackson stopped acting in 1991 to focus on politics. In the 1992 general election, she won the seat for Hampstead and Highgate. She became a "shadow transport minister" in 1996.

After the Labour Party won by a lot in the 1997 general election, she became a junior minister. She was in charge of transport in London. She left this job in 1999. She tried to become the first Mayor of London in 2000 but did not win the Labour Party's selection.

As an MP, Jackson often disagreed with Prime Minister Tony Blair. She criticized his plans for university tuition fees and called for him to resign after a report about the Iraq War.

In the 2010 general election, her constituency boundaries changed. She was elected as the MP for the new Hampstead and Kilburn constituency. She won by only 42 votes, which was one of the closest results in that election.

In June 2011, Glenda Jackson announced she would not seek re-election in 2015. She said she would be almost 80 and it would be time for someone else.

In April 2013, she gave a famous speech in Parliament after Margaret Thatcher's death. She said that Thatcher's policies had caused high unemployment and homelessness. Another of her speeches went viral in June 2014. In it, she strongly criticized the government's welfare policies.

Her Personal Life

In 1957, Glenda Jackson met Roy Hodges, who was also an actor. They got married on 2 August 1958. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1969. Daniel later became a newspaper columnist. Glenda and Roy divorced in 1976.

Glenda Jackson lived in Swiss Cottage, London, which she later represented as an MP. Later, she lived in Blackheath, in a basement flat below her son's family. Her hobbies included cooking, gardening, and reading books by Jane Austen.

Glenda Jackson passed away at her home in Blackheath on 15 June 2023, at the age of 87.

Awards and Honours

Commonwealth Honours

Country	Date	Appointment	Post-nominal letters
United Kingdom	1978 – present	Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division)	CBE

Scholastic Honours

Location	Date	School	Position
England		Liverpool John Moores University	Honorary Fellow

Honorary Degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree	Status
England	9 July 1978	University of Liverpool	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
United States	1981	University of Scranton	Doctorate
England	1987	Keele University	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
England	1988	University of Exeter	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
England	1992	University of Nottingham	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
England	1992	Durham University	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)

Images for kids

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  Jackson in 1971

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  Jackson on Broadway, March 2019

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  Jackson in July 2022

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  Jackson on Let Poland be Poland (1982)

See also

In Spanish: Glenda Jackson para niños