Glenda Jackson: The Biography Book

Glenda Jackson had a distinguished career in the avant-garde theatre of the 60s--she played Charlotte Corday in Peter Brook's Marat/Sade--won two Oscars, not necessarily for her best films, and was much admired both as television's Queen Elizabeth and as one of the most perfect guest stars Morecambe and Wise ever had. Chris Bryant's account of her acting life in Glenda Jackson is comprehensive and useful, giving some real sense of why she was so much admired, but also of how the demands she put on herself in her finest roles were ones which might strain anyone's commitment to their art. This is also, after all, a campaign biography; Bryant was part of her team in the 1992 general election, and it seems likely that Jackson will be standing as the approved Labour candidate in the election for London's Mayor. He stresses the discontent with Labour infighting that Jackson felt during the Thatcher era and uses this to chart her move from feminist firebrand to the woman Ken Livingstone described as "The most right-wing minister the Labour Party has ever had." She has been a hard-working spokesperson on transport policy and a good constituency MP: "When I became an MP some people expected me to fall flat on my face because I was a woman arriving from a profession thought to be occupied by idiots. Either that, or they thought I would be a prima donna. Why anyone should have thought that, I'm in no position to know, as one of the things that was knocked out of me early on in acting was my ego." --Roz KaveneyRead More