Glenda Jackson, an Oscar-winning actress and politician, died at the age of 87.
According to a statement by her agent Lionel Larner, “Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London, this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side.”
Jackson received the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1970 for her portrayal of a headstrong artist in Ken Russell’s version of DH Lawrence’s novel Women In Love, and again three years later for the romantic comedy A Touch Of Class.
She did not, however, attend the Hollywood celebration on either occasion. Despite her successful entertainment career (she also won two Emmy Awards and a Tony), she was never interested in the industry’s social and glamorous side and devoted herself to politics in the 1990s.
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After more than three decades on stage and screen, Jackson brought her no-nonsense, straight-talking style into politics, enraged by the devastation she believed former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was inflicting on the working people.
Jackson entered politics after more than three decades in theatre and film.
She was elected as the Labour Party’s candidate for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992, and from 1997 to 1999, when Sir Tony Blair was prime minister, she served as a junior transport minister. Despite this, she developed a reputation as a vocal opponent of his New Labour initiative.
“We must work for the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the frail, the sick,” she told supporters as she won her seat in parliament.
However, she returned to acting and receiving honours after stepping down as an MP in the 2015 general election.
In 2019, she played a woman suffering from dementia in ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’, for which she received a TV BAFTA for Best Actor the following year. She also received tremendous accolades for her performance as King Lear on stage.
