Lady Redgrave

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 30:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week describes herself as just a working actress, but that humble phrase belies the influential world from which she comes. Not only has her own career been long and distinguished, her husband was knighted for his services to acting, and one of her daughters has long been regarded as one of the most dynamic forces of British stage and screen. Her other children have enjoyed success in the profession too, and now several of her grandchildren are continuing the tradition.

Presenter0:59

As she approaches her seventy ninth birthday, she still sits at the head of one of this country's most famous theatrical dynasties. She is, of course, Rachel Kempson, Lady Redgrave.

Presenter1:10

A working actress who uh simply carries on working, Lady Redgrave. What are you working on at the moment?

Presenter1:16

Well, at the moment I'm playing Volumnia in Coriolanus with Corinne.

Presenter1:20

I promised to do it with him for years.

Presenter1:24

And now at last we're doing it. He has most of the play on his shoulders, but I do find Volumnia pretty tough. But at the same time I think there's quite a bit of humour in it. So you're playing your son's mother, as it were. Yes. Is it is that difficult? Well, it's very funny sometimes, because the other day

Lady Redgrave1:38

Yeah.

Presenter1:43

I happened to have my back turned to him in a certain movement.

Presenter1:47

And he said Mother, and I said, What is it, darling? And it was actually of course it was he meant it it was part of the play. Oh, mother, mother, you see. But he he simply said mother and I said,

Presenter2:02

Oh, darling, what was that?

Presenter2:04

Hardly Shakespearean. No, not at all, no. And your grandson is in it, too. Is Harvey?

Presenter2:10

He plays the little boy, the the the son of Coriolanus and Virgilia, and grandson to old mum, as I call him. So there are three generations of Redgrave, as it were, on the stage at one time. Has that happened before, three generations of Redgraves?

Lady Redgrave2:24

One time.

Presenter2:28

Well, I've been in other things with for instance, I was with Vanessa, Corinne.

Presenter2:37

Jolian Tush in

Presenter2:39

The charge of the light brigade. They were very small then. But is it easy?

Presenter2:43

Acting with family, I would have thought it's a difficult thing.

Lady Redgrave2:45

Not always no.

Presenter2:52

Well, we'll talk more about all of that and the acting in a moment. But let me ask you, um, first of all, about being cast away on our desert island. Do you find it a happy idea?

Presenter3:02

Well, I shouldn't like to be there too long. I think I could make a fire.

Presenter3:07

And, um I suppose there'd be fruit, and I could read.

Presenter3:12

And providing it was warm and I could sit in a nice nook, it'd be all right. But I think the first ship that I sighted I would hail and get m get myself off. Is there anything you'd really, really miss?

Presenter3:26

On an island, company.

Presenter3:29

And there will be monkeys.

Presenter3:30

Presumably

Presenter3:32

But your music would help you no end. Oh, yes.

Presenter3:36

Shall we hear the first of your records, then?

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The first is

Presenter3:40

Schubert's quintet in A major, the Trout Quintet, played by Louis Kentner.

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I knew Louis Kentner and Griselda.

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And Diana, now Lady Benuin.

Presenter3:53

And I used to have supper with them quite a lot, and we we had an enormous amount of fun, and Louis used to play.

Presenter4:53

Schubert's quintet in A Major the Trout Quintet, played by Louis Kentner with members of the Hungarian String Quartet.

Presenter5:01

I have the impression, Lady Redgrave, despite your large family and what, ten grandchildren, that you're really something of a loner.

Presenter5:09

Yes, I am. I always have been, I think.

Presenter5:12

I love to see them when I do, but you see I can't see a great deal of them, because we're always all in different things.

Presenter5:19

So it's just a question of when you can.

Presenter5:21

Naturally, now I can. You wrote in your autobiography not long ago that you sometimes felt like one of those.

Lady Redgrave5:23

A chick on the

Presenter5:29

Lonely figures inside a glass bubble that you shake and snow falls all round.

Lady Redgrave5:32

Can snow fall

Lady Redgrave5:33

Well

Presenter5:34

I actually did when I was quite young. Michael was an enormous success. Everybody was, you know, at his feet and so on. And I did. I felt.

Presenter5:44

sort of slightly out of it, if you can put it that way. You perhaps t felt taken over by his life and his stardom, as it were. Perhaps it was that, and I admired him tremendously. I mean, I thought he was really the tops.

Presenter5:58

But you never felt entirely, you wrote, at home in the world of the theatre, although it's been your life.

Lady Redgrave6:03

Though it's been your

Presenter6:04

No, I didn't.

Presenter6:06

When I was first young at Stratford,

Presenter6:09

I remember Bridges Adams, who was the director, saying to my father

Presenter6:14

Rachel hasn't the toughness. She will never get on in the theatre.

Presenter6:19

Because she won't stand up for herself.

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And do you think you did, or do you think that

Presenter6:27

I don't think I stood up for myself. I think by luck.

Presenter6:30

I sort of got on.

Presenter6:32

Can you remember what first inspired you? Your mother and father weren't anything to do with the theatre, were they? No, but they were they really loved the theatre. And when we were young we were taken to everything possible, in the gallery, as a rule.

Presenter6:47

So you decided at what point that you actually wanted to go into the theatre, that this was to be your life?

Presenter6:53

Well, it wasn't really.

Presenter6:55

Until I saw Sybil Thorndyke play Catherine of Aragon in a very wonderful production.

Presenter7:02

Of Henry the Eighth, and I thought her voice was so wonderful. And I came home, I started to read it to mother, and she said, That's not very good.

Presenter7:12

I said, Well, I want to go into the theatre and I am determined on it. And she said, Oh, well, we'll see.

Presenter7:20

And were they against your going into the city? Well, I think they were only against it because they were pretty certain I wouldn't be any good.

Lady Redgrave7:22

Well I think

Presenter7:28

It wasn't till I went to Stratford

Presenter7:30

that then they came to the place and thought I would be some good, but they were but equally they weren't sure that I'd be any good later when I got to London, and for a long time I wasn't.

Presenter7:41

Shall we pause there for your second record?

Presenter7:44

Handel's water music. I've always loved Handel's water music, and I used to imagine the boats going up and down in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

Presenter8:46

Handel's water music, played by the City of London Sinphonia, conducted by Richard Hickox. We slightly bypassed your childhood there, Lady Redgrave. Would you describe it as a happy one?

Presenter8:58

On the whole

Presenter9:00

Yes, I think I would.

Presenter9:02

Except that when the war came and my father joined up in the Royal Engineers and trained his own battalion on the playing fields of rugby, I knew that the person I at that time loved most in the world was going away and I didn't know for how long.

Presenter9:19

and I dreaded it.

Presenter9:20

And then he went and he was away for the full

Lady Redgrave9:22

And

Presenter9:24

Time except for one leave.

Presenter9:27

When he came home.

Presenter9:28

And of course in at that time we didn't know when the war was going to come to an end.

Presenter9:33

So did it break your heart, his absence?

Presenter9:39

I remember sitting by his side until he woke up, and not daring to speak, because I knew he would be so tired.

Presenter9:47

Did you get on with him so much better than with your mother?

Presenter9:52

I have to say, on the whole, I did. I mean, she she was adorable and beautiful.

Presenter9:57

But I think it was a tough time for her, too, because it was very difficult to get fooled you know, very difficult to get about, really. But but there, your mother and father didn't have the happiest of relationships, did they? No, they didn't no.

Lady Redgrave10:08

No.

Presenter10:10

It did come right in the end, though. But there was a lot of door slamming and

Lady Redgrave10:14

Oh great

Lady Redgrave10:17

Will's

Presenter10:20

For mother, would you go to go and speak to him? Well, I didn't know what to say when I was eight.

Presenter10:26

I saved that

Presenter10:28

Must you talk to her like that or something? And I mean, I didn't I didn't really understand what was going on. But did it make you determine that your marriage would not be like that?

Presenter10:38

I said to myself fairly early on, my husband can do what he likes, he can get drunk.

Presenter10:44

I shall never, never, never criticise him, which wasn't really a very good thing. But then everything's a reaction in life, isn't it? And did you never criticise him?

Presenter10:53

Well, I probably did. I remember once. It was quite funny.

Presenter10:58

started throwing flower pots at each other, and shouting Mist Mist and then sweeping it all up, and then kissing and saying it was all lovely.

Presenter11:08

I was at Bedford House. How did you meet the young Michael Redgrave?

Presenter11:13

Well, I was engaged.

Presenter11:15

By William Armstrong.

Presenter11:17

To go to the Liverpool Rep, which was really about the best in England.

Presenter11:23

And

Presenter11:24

The morning after I arrived I thought I'd walk down and I walked round the

Presenter11:28

theatre and have a look at the photographs. And there was this gorgeous young man, Michael.

Presenter11:35

And the thing that I thought was so lovely about him was that he didn't look actorish, if you know what I mean, what I would always call a laddie actor.

Presenter11:43

He looked.

Presenter11:45

Well, straightforward and ordin not ordinary, but straightforward and good looking.

Presenter11:50

Well, then I went round to the stage door, and Willie, who was absolutely dear,

Presenter11:55

Said, now, Rachel, I want you to meet Michael Redgrave, your leading man.

Presenter11:58

We shook hands.

Presenter12:00

And Michael

Presenter12:02

Said, well and then they said, Well, well, come on, let's go on the stage and we'll start.

Presenter12:06

From then on he took me out to lunch every day.

Presenter12:10

We used to sing the Beggars' Opera on our way back to rehearsal.

Presenter12:14

And

Presenter12:15

I was falling madly in love with him.

Presenter12:18

And that was how it started.

Presenter12:21

But how were you sure that what you felt for Michael Redgrave this time was the real thing? Well, are you ever?

Presenter12:28

I mean

Presenter12:30

The whole thing's a bit of a toss-up, isn't it?

Presenter12:33

Well, did you propose to him, or did he propose to you?

Presenter12:37

Oh, there was quite a funny day when

Presenter12:40

We were lying on the hearthrug by the fire.

Presenter12:43

And I think I said, Oh, darling, let's he wants to go to bed. But because of my upbringing

Presenter12:50

I didn't think it was the thing. You see, mother was always saying

Presenter12:53

Well, you could never go to bed with a man. I longed to. I wanted to go to bed with about fifteen, but not at the same time.

Presenter12:59

You see, you didn't in her day.

Presenter13:03

So I did say

Presenter13:06

Well, couldn't we? And he said, Well, it would be absolutely lovely. I should love it. But there are things in my nature which wouldn't be right. And I said, Oh, you don't want to bother about that. It'll all be all right. If we get married, you'll see.

Presenter13:17

And so you did.

Presenter13:19

Shall we pause for another record?

Presenter13:22

The next record is from The Beggar's Opera, If a Heart of a Man is Depressed With Cares, by John Gay.

Presenter13:30

And it is sung by Michael.

Presenter13:32

To me, quite beautifully. I mean, I I was so in love with his voice, I was more in love with him when than ever when he played MacHees in the Beggars' Opera.

Lady Redgrave13:41

If the heart of a man is depressed with cares, But her mist is dispelled when a woman appears, Like the notes of a fiddle, She sweetly, sweetly raises our spirits and charms.

Presenter13:47

What my

Speaker 213:53

Sweetly raised

Lady Redgrave13:57

Go.

Lady Redgrave14:00

Roses and lilies her cheeks disclose, But her ripe lips are more sweet than those. Press, her caress, her, with bliss is her kisses, This all but in pleasure can soar.

Lady Redgrave14:20

Roses and lilies her cheeks disclose, But her ripe lips are more sweet than those. Press a caress where blisses part is

Presenter14:49

The aria If the Heart of a Man is Depressed with Cares from the Beggar's Opera by John Gay, sung by Michael Redgrave with the Glinebourne Company, at the Haymarket.

Presenter14:58

So, Lady Redgrave, after your marriage in nineteen thirty five, you and Michael were both offered contracts at the old Vic, weren't you?

Speaker 215:05

Grinch him.

Presenter15:06

Under Tyron Guthrie, which was a marvellous opportunity. But then you became pregnant, so you had to forego that. Yes, I I was only able to do Love's Labour's Lost.

Presenter15:15

Did you resent that? Did you resent being prepared?

Presenter15:19

Just at first, I felt disappointed because the parts were going to be so lovely. And then.

Presenter15:26

I was terribly excited to be going to have a baby because I wanted a baby.

Presenter15:31

You went on, in fact, to have your other two children, Corinne and Lynne, over the next five years or so. Was it a a conscious decision, then, on your part, to sacrifice your career, as it were? Well, I didn't sacrifice it because

Lady Redgrave15:42

What?

Presenter15:45

When I came back to London,

Presenter15:47

I was

Presenter15:48

Off at Mariah in The School for Scandal, in John Gilgood's company, Michael playing Charles.

Presenter15:56

So I accepted that. I may say at the same time it was understudying in a priestly play at the royalty and

Presenter16:02

Just about to rehearse.

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In The Shoemaker's Holiday

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At Nancy Price's Theatre of the Playhouse.

Presenter16:10

And one night I sort of blacked out in um as Moriah. It was all right, but I was pouring with fear. But I got through it all right.

Presenter16:20

But that must have been terribly difficult to try and do both things. The theatre is such a totally demanding profession. Yes, it was difficult, but

Lady Redgrave16:26

Demon

Presenter16:29

You see, I I wanted to get back. Once I'd had Vanessa and then done some more well, quite a bit more acting, then I didn't want to have an only child.

Presenter16:41

And so that was really how how I decided. Well, if you do decide. Anyway, I had Corinne.

Presenter16:49

And then

Presenter16:50

Well, after Corinne it was the war.

Presenter16:53

You had, of course, we we

Presenter16:55

failed to mention being an enormous success at Stratford in your early career. Yes, in the early career, yes, I had. On a contract of four pounds a week.

Lady Redgrave16:59

Early career

Lady Redgrave17:04

Toy

Presenter17:05

What was your favourite part there, then? Oh, Juliet, definitely. I played it two seasons running.

Presenter17:11

And has that remained your favourite part?

Presenter17:13

Yes, in my mind it has. In fact, I

Presenter17:17

I did it at a special recital, we all did as a family, with Michael.

Presenter17:22

Vanessa, Corinne, me Lynne couldn't'cause she was abroad.

Presenter17:27

And a singer, we we did a recital of sort of favorite things.

Presenter17:33

I did a bit of Romeo and Juliet, did the potion scene.

Presenter17:37

Shall we pause there for your fourth record?

Presenter17:41

My fourth record is Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Presenter17:45

I've always loved this record.

Presenter17:47

as I had a very dear, dear friend in the country, John Fowler, of Colfax and Fowler, and it was his favourite, and whenever I was in his house we used to put on the entire Vivaldi's four seasons before dinner.

Lady Redgrave18:38

Uh

Presenter19:00

The Spring Movement from Vivaldi's Four Seasons played by Victoria Muleva with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Claudio Abardo.

Presenter19:09

Lady Redgrave, your daughter Vanessa, was your first baby, and she wasn't an easy one, was she? How did you cope?

Presenter19:16

Well, I had a very difficult nanny for a start, who I really grew to dislike extremely.

Presenter19:22

Because she was so much too severe, and I don't think you should be with small children.

Presenter19:28

Anyway.

Presenter19:30

For that reason I think Vanessa rebelled. I mean, I would have done if I'd been her.

Presenter19:35

And um at that time I got to know Edith Evans very well.

Presenter19:39

And so she said one day, well, let's go for a walk in Kensington Gardens.

Presenter19:45

And it was autumn, and Vanessa

Presenter19:49

like any child, loved shuffling through the leaves and getting that lovely sort of shuffle, shuffle, crunchy sound.

Presenter19:55

And at last we thought well we must go home, and must go home to tea.

Presenter20:00

And um

Presenter20:02

Vanessa started screaming.

Presenter20:04

So I picked her up and there were an awful lot of people watching.

Presenter20:07

And I shoved her in the pl plam and sort of pushed her down, scream, scream, scream.

Presenter20:14

And

Presenter20:15

I thought these people were going to sort of say, Well, you're very cruel or something and Edith said, Walloper, Rachel, walloper, and I'll I'll stand by and witness you only did it in kindness And then we went out of the park and she immediately bought her a toy horse. But you did wallop, Vanessa. Well, I gave it a bit of a wallop on the bottom, yes. I don't think it was a very hard one.

Presenter20:37

But was there not another wonderful occasion when Edith came to tea? Yes, well that was quite funny.

Presenter20:43

They were all sitting round the table. Lynne had just been born, and E Edith said, I've come to see the new baby.

Presenter20:52

And then she said.

Presenter20:53

Ah, here's Corinne. I think I'll sit next to him.

Presenter20:57

Not saying much now, but you'll see we're going to be great friends. And Corinne looked at her with a face of fury, and he said What a lot of teeth you got

Presenter21:09

And she just replied

Presenter21:11

Yes, and thank God that all me all

Presenter21:16

Would you say you were less close to Vanessa tha than to Lynne? You wrote about it in your autobiography that because Lynne's was such an easy birth and Vanessa such a difficult one that you were Well, I think the first birth is always difficult, and I went to the most impossible nursing home recommended by one of my mother-in-law's friends who said you had to be vegetarian. I didn't know what it meant, so I ate lettuce leaves and got terribly thin and totally exhausted. So by the time I had an it took hours and hours and hours and hours, and I was stuck in a bath, and I heard a nurse saying this is not very good, so I thought, Well, I'm going to die and I don't care.

Presenter21:54

But

Presenter21:55

Finally, the Doctor, who was called Pink of all names,

Presenter21:59

slung me over his shoulder and dragged me downstairs.

Presenter22:03

and on to a thing, and I was given a whiff of chloroform.

Presenter22:07

And I woke up, and there was this exquisite creature.

Presenter22:10

With

Presenter22:11

A fish like

Presenter22:13

Peaches and cream sucking her thumb.

Presenter22:17

And do you think that that that semi dreadful experience has affected your relationship with Vanessa, your daughter? I don't think now. I mean, I I'm awfully fond of her and I admire her enormously.

Presenter22:28

I I really can't say that it has in the long run. How soon did your children show a a a natural bent for the theatre?

Presenter22:37

Well, actually, it was during the war when they were with my cousin Lucy Kempson in Herefordshire.

Presenter22:43

And they started making up

Presenter22:45

Scenes and plays.

Presenter22:48

and w there was a sort of roaded not a d a dell, and it was fine weather.

Presenter22:54

And Vanessa

Presenter22:55

came up out of this dell, up the bank, and she said, I have salvaged these few flowers from the wreck.

Presenter23:04

Well, from a wreck, of course, you couldn't get any flowers. Then they made up oh, endless sort of fairy plays, and so on. And they used to tape record plays, didn't they? Ah, not then. It was later on, when we lived at Bedford House. They borrowed Mike's tape recorder.

Presenter23:18

And

Presenter23:19

Vanessa always did the great poetess, and it was usually he did sitwell.

Presenter23:23

And then Corinne

Presenter23:25

Was always the great director. Linniv was the one who was listening with mother. Up he rose in his grandfather's pants and all that.

Presenter23:32

And then somebody did come to lunch from the BBC and said, I simply don't believe it and gave them a job on children's BBC. Not Lynn, but the other two. So you you could spot, could you, from quite an early age, that that perhaps Vanessa in particular had a had a talent.

Lady Redgrave23:47

Excellent.

Presenter23:49

Yes, I think I could, and she's terribly funny.

Presenter23:52

Let's have your fifth record.

Presenter23:54

My fifth record

Presenter23:56

Is Vanessa

Presenter23:58

And Richard Harris singing What Do the Simple Folk Do from Camelot?

Presenter24:03

However do they manage To shed their weary lot

Speaker 324:06

Oh, what do simple folk do?

Speaker 324:13

We do not.

Speaker 224:17

I have been informed by those that know them well, they find relief in quite a

Speaker 224:23

Clever way When thus sorely pressed, they whistle for a spell and whistle

Presenter24:30

Right.

Presenter24:33

Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Harris singing What Do the Simple Folk Do from Camelot.

Presenter24:39

Now, apart from their theatrical successes, Lady Redgrave, your two eldest children, Vanessa and Corin, are of course also well known for their extreme left wing views, their championship of the Workers' Revolutionary Party. Is that born of you, or was it something you spotted early on? No, I don't think it's born of me because I'm not

Lady Redgrave24:55

Uh

Presenter24:58

any longer political.

Presenter25:01

But when did it all begin, their political leanings? Can you remember?

Presenter25:05

Well, I think the absolute beginning was the time of the invasion of Hungary, when Vanessa was a student.

Presenter25:13

And she wanted immediately, she was only seventeen, but she wanted to go to Hungary at once. And Michael said, Well, you.

Presenter25:18

You really can't at your age, but you can take collecting boxes and collect money for Hungary, which she did.

Presenter25:27

And then she and Corinne went on various demonstrations. Yes, but then they weren't the only ones. I mean, there were a lot of people who weren't WRP who went on demonstrations anti nuclear.

Presenter25:38

C and D

Presenter25:40

And what did their father, Sir Michael, think of this? Well, he said, thank God they've got some opinions, a lot of people don't have any.

Lady Redgrave25:43

Well he

Presenter25:48

And he just said, Well, Vanessa's divinely mad. It's lovely.

Presenter25:52

Is that what he said? Yes.

Presenter25:55

What do you think he meant by that?

Presenter25:56

That in a sort of when I mean that she's not mad, but in a kind of lovely way, she sort of goes off and does what she thinks she's going to do.

Presenter26:05

Rightly or wrongly. But it must be quite hurtful for you to see your your children um criticised as they often are. Well, I don't like them being criticised at all, and I don't really

Lady Redgrave26:11

Well I don't like

Presenter26:16

I mean, when people do.

Presenter26:18

And it did happen to me in the country last weekend.

Presenter26:21

And I happened to know some other people in the country who were wildly right-wing. I mean, blue, blue, blue.

Presenter26:29

And the husband said, As far as I'm concerned, Vanessa Redgrave can stand on her head, she can act like that, she can do anything she likes.

Presenter26:38

And Lynne, your your youngest, is is not of the same persuasions at all, is she? She is. No. But then she what she said was, if you live in America, it's another person's country, you can't

Presenter26:49

I mean, if if it's Reagan or

Presenter26:51

Bush or whoever. You just accept them.

Presenter26:54

But you think she's more like you, Lynne?

Presenter26:57

Ye well, I I in a way, I suppose, yes.

Presenter27:01

As far as anybody's like anybody else, yes. Are you closest to her of all your three children? Well, it's only b if I am, it's only because

Presenter27:11

I miss her so much. She was the youngest of the family, born in the middle of the war at a very difficult time.

Presenter27:18

And she's away most of the time. She very sweetly well, she wrote to me again the other day, and she did win at the first.

Presenter27:26

And she said, I love you forever because you've let me go, you haven't held on to me.

Presenter27:30

And she said it in another card the other day.

Presenter27:34

So I feel I've done for her what she wanted. Do you feel you've done for Vanessa and Corinne what they wanted?

Presenter27:40

Well, I haven't stopped them doing anything.

Presenter27:43

And now their children are making names for themselves, most notably, of course, Natasha and Jolie Richardson, Vanessa's children. You must be very proud. They're very talented girls. Well, I n see, everybody says you must be so proud. I don't think proud is the word. It's wonderful.

Speaker 227:46

Yeah.

Speaker 227:49

Yes, yes.

Presenter27:58

I'm pleased for them to do what they want to do and be happy doing it.

Presenter28:04

Let's have some more music.

Presenter28:06

My sixth record is Benjamin Britton's Ceremony of Carols.

Presenter28:10

I admire both Benjamin Britton and Peter Peirs. I always admired them. I saw as many of their operas as I possibly could, and I went to Woolborough and took Linny with me.

Lady Redgrave28:23

In the born for thousands of wind Oh, I think that's a long time.

Speaker 228:27

Yeah.

Lady Redgrave28:28

The young ratios, the young battles.

Presenter28:28

They are too.

Speaker 328:33

Uh

Speaker 228:37

Yeah. Dark spider

Speaker 328:41

Uh

Lady Redgrave28:41

They're all products, they're all products.

Speaker 328:50

Blessed be the time that I can take a bus, then forever change.

Speaker 228:52

We didn't have a great

Speaker 228:54

Uh

Speaker 328:59

Yeah.

Presenter29:21

Adam Lee Boundon from Benjamin Britton's Ceremony of Carols, sung by the choir of Westminster Cathedral, conducted by David Hill.

Presenter29:29

Lady Redgrave, your husband, Sir Michael, died some four years ago. Yes, I think it was four years.

Presenter29:36

How dramatically has widowhood changed your life?

Presenter29:41

Well

Presenter29:42

His illness was so appalling. I didn't want him to die, I wanted him to live.

Presenter29:47

But that was a selfish view, because when somebody's as ill as that and you just walk them round the square and finally day and night nurses

Presenter29:55

It's

Presenter29:56

You know that they must die, but at the same time

Presenter30:01

I wanted him to well, he did go on going to the theatre. He went on working for a long time, did tremendous American tours. He had Parkinson's disease. He had Parkinson's for about fifteen years. At first nobody knew what it was and they said, Oh, it's just drink. Well, I knew by the look there's a very strange look about a Parkinson person with their eyes fixed and they stumble. And when we were walking

Presenter30:24

I take his arm and he, you know, stumble and this fixed look in the eyes because it affects the eyes.

Presenter30:31

So that

Presenter30:33

Really?

Presenter30:34

I didn't want him to die, of course not. I loved him very much, and in a way, more when he was ill, and I

Presenter30:40

You know I was with him a lot.

Presenter30:42

I used to sit with him and talk to him and play records and do anything I could and walks. And he even went to see Natasha at the Jung Vic, playing Ophelia and Hamlet, which was the last he saw.

Presenter30:54

And at that time he was in a

Presenter30:57

Nursing home at Inum.

Presenter31:00

Ivor Bucks, and the matron said he talked of nothing else for three days, and then finally, apparently, his the kidneys gave out and he died quietly in his sleep. But I was terribly upset at not being there.

Presenter31:14

I was doing television with Connie Cummings and others.

Presenter31:20

And we had to go up to Leeds, and there was nothing I could do about it, and I didn't I didn't realise that he was as ill as that, or if I had. You don't have understudies, you see.

Presenter31:30

And the day I came back, I said, Well, now, Corinne, let's go and see Dad. And he said, Dad died this morning.

Presenter31:36

which was to me awful.

Presenter31:38

And I do feel very lonely. I mean, it's no good saying I don't. I know people, and therefore work becomes everything.

Presenter31:47

So, you want to go on working as far as possible and as long as possible.

Presenter31:51

Which gives you great financial independence. Yes, it does. Which is important, obviously.

Lady Redgrave31:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter31:57

Shall we have some more music?

Presenter31:59

I would like to have

Presenter32:01

Part of Marler's Fifth Symphony.

Presenter32:04

Because

Presenter32:05

I know Dirk Bogard. I admired him enormously in Death in Venice, and I thought the music was absolutely perfect. Also, I've been to Venice about six times, and I think it's one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Presenter33:17

The adagietto from Mahla's Fifth Symphony played by the Orchestra of the Academy of St. Cecilia, conducted by Franco Manino.

Presenter33:26

Lady Redgrave, you've said you're about to open in Coriolanus, uh and you're in a film that's about to be released, I think.

Presenter33:34

Yes, I think it's going to be called Lillian.

Presenter33:37

But we don't absolutely know yet.

Presenter33:40

The main character played by Peggy is Lillian, so presumably it will be Lillian. This is Peggy Ashcroft. Yes.

Presenter33:47

We saw you too, of course, as Lady Manners in Jewel in the Crown. That was a lovely part, wasn't it? Yes, I loved it, yes. And you were in Out of Africa, too. Yes.

Lady Redgrave33:55

Yeah.

Presenter33:56

Do you enjoy all of that sort of far away location filming?

Presenter34:02

I was with Peggy in Jewel and the Crown.

Presenter34:05

And this

Presenter34:06

She's one of my very best friends, and I got to know all the others too, you know, Geraldine James, who I was with, and so on.

Presenter34:13

Um out of Africa.

Presenter34:15

I took Gemma with me the second time. Your granddaughter. Yes.

Presenter34:20

And she got herself a well, she got a walk-on part. So she had pocket money too, and we both loved it.

Presenter34:28

Is there still um a part, do you think, which you could play which you really covered?

Presenter34:35

I I would like to play the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, but it's been done so many times I shall never get it. Anyway, I'm too old for that, too. Now they play her young, which it I mean, she's supposed to be.

Presenter34:46

fairly young because, um, she was the wet nurse to Juliet. So that I couldn't play. I

Presenter34:53

Goodness knows

Presenter34:55

Castle Vadigam too old.

Presenter34:57

Queen Margaret.

Presenter34:59

Well, bit of a battle axe.

Presenter35:01

It's no good me coveting anything. I th think I might with a bit of luck get a television of some what I called old trout.

Presenter35:10

I think modesty is your strong suit, is it? Well, I don't know, but I mean, one has to be realistic.

Presenter35:17

Let's have the last record, if we may.

Presenter35:20

I would like to have something from Marsnez Werte.

Presenter35:24

The reason being that Michael and I on our way to Venice saw it.

Presenter35:28

At the Opera House in Milan.

Presenter35:31

And also he directed it at Leinbourne, very beautifully indeed.

Presenter36:32

The overture to Massenes Werte, played by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter36:39

So, Lady Redgrave, now I must ask you which of those eight records you would like to have more than any of the others?

Presenter36:47

I think I'll say

Presenter36:49

Michael singing If the Heart of a Man is Depressed with Cares from the Beggar's Opera

Presenter36:54

And a book we can supply you with. You you have the the complete works of Shakespeare and you have the Bible. What book would you like as well? Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Lady Redgrave37:01

Jana

Presenter37:03

'Cause I love all the Bronte books and I've been to Howarth and seen the house and all the rest of it. And read it a million times, I'm sure. And read it more times than I can say. But but you'd love to read it again. Yes. And a luxury. What would you like for that? A case of half bottles of champagne.

Presenter37:20

Why not?

Presenter37:23

Lady Redgrave, it's been a great pleasure. Thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 337:36

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.