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Rachel Kempson 2
Rachel Kempson
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Rachel Kempson
Rachel Kempson
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Rachel Kempson 2
Rachel Kempson
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Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
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Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
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Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Redgrave
Famous Sons and Daughters No.18: Rachel Kempson (1910 - 2003)
She was a successful actress in her own right, married to one of the biggest ever names in British theatre and film, and their family has been described as a thespian dynasty. Rachel Kempson and her husband Sir Michael Redgrave are theatrical royalty – and she was born here in Dartmouth.
On May 28th 1910, Rachel Kempson came into the world at the family home in the grounds of Britannia Royal Naval College. Her father, Eric, who had taught at Rugby School and worked for the Board of Education at Kew, came to Dartmouth as headmaster of the College. His wife, Beatrice, was known to all as Beanie, and they had three children, Rachel and her brothers Eric, whose nickname was Robin, and Nicholas.
Rachel was sent away to school, a bleak Anglo-Catholic Sussex convent, but holidays were spent in Dartmouth and making up plays was a popular pastime – a distraction from the frequent quarrels of her parents. Acting became her ambition, but Rachel originally faced strong family opposition to going on the stage. However, once she had seen Dame Sybil Thorndike playing the role of Katherine of Aragon, in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, her resolve was set. Encouraged by the retired actor-manager Cyril Maude, a family friend who also lived in Dartmouth, she was determined to achieve her aim. After taking various odd jobs, and with Maude’ help, she finally got her wish and went on to win a part scholarship to Rada.
Rachel Kempson made her professional stage debut at Stratford in 1933 playing Hero in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Her career took off with spectacular success. Straight out of drama school, she made a “heart-rending Juliet and a most affecting Ophelia.” She worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the English Stage Company and the Old Vic, and was heralded as “one of the most beautiful and promising Shakespearean actresses on the British stage.”
At Liverpool Playhouse in 1935, Rachel met the handsome and popular Michael Redgrave, a former schoolmaster in his first year on the stage. The same year they were married and the theatre world anticipated a formidable stage partnership. Their appearance together in 1936 in Love’s Labour’s Lost, he as the King of Navarre, she as the Princess of France, won unstinted praise and their promise was confirmed the next year when Rachel played Maria to Michael’s Charles Surface in The School for Scandal.
But although they did work together again on occasion, Rachel’s career always came second to her marriage, and to her children. The couple’s first child, Vanessa, was born in 1937; the second, Corin, in 1939; and the third, Lynn, in 1943. All three Redgraves have become hugely successful and talented actors in film and theatre, and their own children, among them Joely and the late Natasha Richardson, and Jemma Redgrave, continued the acting line.
Rachel carried on acting, with and without Michael, on the stage, but her family was always her main priority. Having grown up in a house of arguments where her parents struggled with married life, Rachel was determined to be an excellent and loyal wife and mother. Michael Redgrave was not always an easy husband, but the couple, who become Sir Michael and Lady Redgrave in 1959, stayed together until Sir Michael’s death in 1985, four months before they would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. In 1986, Lady Kempson wrote her autobiography Life Among the Redgraves - A Family and its Fortunes, in which she detailed her difficult marriage to a man who was bisexual and had several affairs, but also spelled out how much she loved him. For 12 years before his death she nursed Sir Michael as he struggled with Parkinson’s Disease.
Theatre audiences who were held spellbound by Rachel Kempson’s performances, mainly in Shakespeare, in the 1950s, clamoured for more from the actress, finding her way back into work as her children grew older. In King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and Samson Agonistes, she was acclaimed. Rachel continued to act for four more decades.
She appeared on film alongside several family members, including her husband in The Captive Heart in 1946, daughter Lynn in Tom Jones in 1963 and Georgy Girl in 1966, and both Vanessa and Corin in The Charge Of The Light Brigade in 1968. She never ceased to act for long, demonstrating her talent in supporting roles for older women, for example as Lady Manners in The Jewel In The Crown and Lady Belfield in Out Of Africa.
Rachel Kempson loved to travel and revelled in the role of grandmother, visiting her 10 grandchildren in both the UK and USA, and watching the actors among them perform. It was while on a visit to her granddaughter Natasha’s home in Millbrook, New York, in 2003, that Rachel died suddenly from a stroke. She was 92.
Further reading online:
www.filmreference.com/film/79/Rachel-Kempson.html
www.independent.co.uk › News › Obituaries
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/.../Rachel-Kempson.htm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0447499/
In print: A Family And Its Fortunes by Rachel Kempson Lady Redgrave, published by Duckworth 1986
First published December 2010 By the Dart
