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Natasha Richardson Biography

Actor

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Actress Natasha Richardson died in 2009 after a freak skiing accident: a fall during a lesson led to a head injury which ended her life two days later. Richardson had been a star of the stage and screen since 1985, when she appeared with her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, in a London production of The Seagull. Both of Richardson's parents won Oscars: her mother as supporting actress for Julia (1977), and her father, Tony Richardson, as best director for the 1963 film Tom Jones. Classically trained and honey-haired, both serious and sensual, Natasha Richardson quickly made her own name in films like The Handmaid's Tale (1990, with Robert Duvall), Nell (1994, with her future husband Liam Neeson) and the surprisingly popular Disney remake The Parent Trap (1998, with Richardson as the mother of twins played by Lindsay Lohan). She also flourished on stage, earning a Tony nomination for Anna Christie (1993, again with Neeson) and then winning a Tony as best actress in the 1998 New York revival of Cabaret. (Her turn as Sally Bowles in the latter "managed to obliterate memories of Liza Minnelli's film performance," as a review by Baseline put it.) She married Neeson in 1994, and they had two sons: Micheal Richard (b. 1995) and Daniel Jack (b. 1996). Richardson's fatal fall took place at the Mont Tremblant ski resort near Montreal on 16 March 2009; she died two days later in New York's Lenox Hill Hospital after her family removed her from life support.

Extra credit: Richardson married the stage and film producer Robert Fox in 1990. They had no children and were divorced in 1994... Her sister is the actress Joely Richardson, her grandfather the actor Michael Redgrave, and her aunt the actress Lynn Redgrave... Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave were married from 1962-67; Natsha and Joely were their only offspring. Tony Richardson died in 1991... She played kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in a 1988 film of the same name.

Richardson joins singer Sonny Bono in our loop on Ski Slope Mishaps.

Blog posts mentioning Natasha Richardson:

• Richardson Autopsy: "Blunt Impact" to the Head
• Natasha Richardson Health Update
• Natasha Richardson, 1963-2009