Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Rachel KEMPSON Lady Redgrave (1910-2003)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Rachel Kempson, actress, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews as she arrived at Hatchard's bookshop in Kingston upon Thames, having been led to believe she was there to do a book signing.
Rachel, who was born in Dartmouth, began acting with local amateur groups before training at RADA. Following a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford, she joined the Liverpool Playhouse, where she met the actor Michael Redgrave. They married in 1936 and appeared together in a season at the Old Vic Theatre before Rachel took a career break to raise their family - daughters Vanessa and Lynn and son Corin - all of whom became successful actors.
She resumed her career in the mid-1940s, appearing with Michael on stage at Stratford and in the films The Captive Heart and The Sea Shall Not Have Them. In the 1950s, she starred in seasons at the Royal Court Theatre and with the RSC in Stratford. On screen, she appeared in films such as Tom Jones and Georgy Girl and on television, notably in The Jewel in the Crown.
"It's not true! I don't believe it! Oh my god... how wonderful!"
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Screenshots of Rachel Kempson This Is Your Life
In the early evening of 15 December 1986, in the strictest secrecy, members of an internationally famous theatrical dynasty gathered in the Green Room at Teddington Studios.
Just a couple of miles down the road in Kingston upon Thames, Lady Redgrave, the actress Rachel Kempson, was arriving at a large book store to sign copies of her book A Family and its Fortunes. She was blissfully unaware that Eamonn Andrews was lurking nearby with our book.
Her first surprise came when she saw who the first two customers were – her daughter Vanessa, and Vanessa's daughter Natasha. They joined us at the studios, where Vanessa's younger daughter, Joely, later of Lady Chatterley fame, had arrived from the RSC at Stratford.
Lady Redgrave and her late husband, Sir Michael, were married for thirty-nine years and the story of the dynasty they founded continued to unfold, with Lynn Redgrave greeting her mother from Boston, Massachusetts, where she was on tour.
We had a live link to the stage of the Young Vic for the interval in a production of Julius Caesar, for a word from Brutus and Portia - Lady Redgrave's son Corin and his actress wife Kika Markham. Corin's children by his first marriage, Luke and the latest acting addition, Jemma Redgrave, joined us.
So did a splendid cast of friends and colleagues, among them Robert Stephens, Dorothy Tutin, Geraldine James, Kenneth Haigh and Patricia Hayes, and there were greetings from Sir Anthony Quayle and Sir John Mills, with Edward Woodward chipping in from location filming on The Equalizer in New York.
A last-minute surprise came when Lynn Redgrave rang to say, amazingly, she did not have a performance that night. Instantly we booked her on a plane from Boston, with daughters Kelly and Annabel. They came on set, gave Lady Redgrave a wonderfully warm hug and flew straight back to Boston. The very stuff of drama.
Series 27 subjects
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