Dame Vanessa Redgrave: Movies, grandchildren and Call the Midwife

With a career spanning over six decades, you've no doubt heard of actress Dame Vanessa Redgrave. As one of the very few actors to win the Triple Crown of Acting (that's an Academy Award, Tony Award and Primetime Emmy Award), she is a widely respected actor with a huge range of roles and accolades under her belt.

Vanessa was born with acting in her blood to acting parents, Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her birth was even announced by actor Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic during a performance of Hamlet where he said, "A great actress has been born this night.". Luckily, Dame Vanessa lived up to these expectations and she's enjoyed a very long and successful acting career.

Vanessa Redgrave's most famous movies

Vanessa's most notable roles over the years include Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), Camelot (1967) Isadora (1968), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Julia (1977), Agatha (1979), The Bostonians (1984), Howards End (1992) and more recently Atonement (2007), Letters to Juliet (2010) and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017).

It was her role in Julia, a film about a woman who was murdered by the Nazi German regime prior to the Second World War for her activism against Facism, that won Vanessa her Oscar Award.

What TV shows has Vanessa Redgrave been in?

As well as a lengthy list of films she's starred in, there are also many TV shows that Vanessa has starred in. Most notably, she's appeared in, Playing for Time (1980), The Wind in The Willows (1995), If These Walls Could Talk (2000), The Gathering Storm (2002), Nip/Tuck (2004), The Shell Seekers (2006), The Thirteenth Tale (2013) and is currently a part of Call the Midwife.

Vanessa Redgrave in Call the Midwife

While you may be scratching your head, wondering which midwife Vanessa plays in the BBC drama series, Call the Midwife, she actually doesn't appear in the series.

In fact, Vanessa is the narrator of Call the Midwife. Each week, at the beginning and end of each episode, her soft and wise voice represents that of retired midwife, Jennifer Worth. Jennifer was the author of the Call the Midwife books and her words are narrated in the series, portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave.

Speaking to Radio Times about her narration, Vanessa said: “I really love narratives told by people who can bring us the period they lived, worked and struggled in. And I like the down-to-earth way that the script approaches these histories.”

How old is Vanessa Redgrave?

Vanessa was born January 30, 1937 in London and she's currently 86 years old.

Vanessa Redgrave's grandchildren and children

Vanessa had three children in total who all enjoyed successful careers in film. Her first born daughter, actress Natasha Richardson, starred in many stage, TV and film roles but tragically passed away in 2009 after a skiing accident. Very sadly, Natasha left behind her mum Vanessa, actor husband Liam Neeson and their two sons, Micheál and Daniel.

The years of 2009 and 2010 were not kind to Vanessa and she lost both her younger siblings, Corin and Lynn Redgrave, as well as her daughter Natasha, during this time.

Vanessa's second daughter, Joely Richardson is also a successful actor, appearing in a huge range of film and TV series. Joely married film producer Tim Bevan in 1992 and the pair share a daughter, Daisy Bevan who is also an actress. Joely and Tim later divorced in 2001.

Carlo Gabriel Nero is Vanessa's only son and is a film director and screen-writer.

In total, Vanessa has six grandchildren, Micheál, Daniel, Daisy and Carlo's three children who we don't know much about.

Is Vanessa Redgrave married?

Vanessa has been married twice in her life. Her first husband was theatre director, Tony Richardson whom she was married to from 1962 until their divorce in 1967. They had two daughters together, Natasha and Joely.

Shortly after, Vanessa met Italian actor, Franco Nero whom she had a son with.

After that relationship ended, she entered a long-term relationship with actor Timothy Dalton from 1971 to 1986.

That relationship wasn't to last, and Vanessa later reunited her relationship with Franco Nero and the pair married in 2006.

Vanessa Redgrave young

With a career spanning over decades, there are plenty of photos from over the years of Vanessa.

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Lorna White is a Senior Digital Writer at Yours.co.uk. She was previously a writer at Yours Magazine writing features and news stories before joining the digital team. Lorna loves the great British countryside and likes to spend her spare time out and about in her home of Nottinghamshire walking her dog, Pippin.