Natasha Richardson's Real Name: Natasha Jane Richardson

Quick answer: Natasha Richardson was born Natasha Jane Richardson on May 11, 1963, in London. She was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson. She won a 1998 Tony Award as Sally Bowles in Cabaret and was married to Liam Neeson. She died on March 18, 2009, at age 45, after a head injury in a fall on a ski slope in Quebec (Library of Congress; The Guardian).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Richardson, Natasha." It quotes an obituary: "b. Natasha Jane Richardson, May 11, 1963, London; d. Wednesday [Mar. 18, 2009], Manhattan, aged 45." Britannica also lists her as Natasha Jane Richardson.

The Guardian's obituary describes her as the third generation of an acting dynasty. Her maternal grandparents were Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her parents divorced when she was three. At four she and her younger sister, Joely, appeared as extras in their father's film The Charge of the Light Brigade. She studied at the Lycée Français and St Paul's Girls' School before training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. According to the obituary, she kept quiet about being a Redgrave when she auditioned.

Career highlights

She built her stage reputation with a 1985 production of Chekhov's The Seagull alongside her mother. On screen she played Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic (1986) and starred in A Month in the Country (1987). Her title role in Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst (1988) marked her arrival in international film. She went on to The Comfort of Strangers and The Handmaid's Tale (both 1990), and in 1993 she played Zelda Fitzgerald in the TV film Zelda.

She starred with Liam Neeson in a Broadway revival of Anna Christie after her father's death in 1991. They married in 1994, the year they appeared together in Nell, and had two sons, Micheál and Daniel. She played the mother in Disney's remake of The Parent Trap opposite Lindsay Lohan and appeared in Maid in Manhattan (2002), Asylum (2005), The White Countess (2005), and Evening (2007). Her 1998 performance in Sam Mendes's Broadway Cabaret won her the Tony Award. She later played Blanche DuBois on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire (2005).

On March 16, 2009, she fell during a beginner's ski lesson at Mont Tremblant, near Montreal. The New York Times reported that the medical examiner found she died of an epidural hematoma caused by blunt impact to the head and ruled her death an accident.

Name notes for searchers

Jane was her middle name. Richardson was her father's surname, while Redgrave was her mother's family name. Her first marriage was to producer Robert Fox, and she worked under Richardson throughout her career.