Natasha Richardson, a gifted and precocious heiress to acting royalty whose career highlights included the film Patty Hearst and a Tony-winning performance in a stage revival of Cabaret, died on Wednesday at age 45 after suffering a head injury during a beginners’ ski lesson.
Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for Richardson’s husband, Liam Neeson, confirmed her death in a written statement.
“Liam Neeson, his sons [Michael, 13, and 12-year-old Daniel], and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha,” the statement said. “They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time.”
The statement did not give details on the cause of death for Richardson, who suffered a head injury and fell on a beginner’s trail during a private ski lesson at the luxury Mont Tremblant ski resort in Quebec.
Seemingly fine after the fall on Tuesday, about an hour later Richardson was hospitalized in Montreal and later flown to New York, where she was taken to the Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
It was a sudden and horrifying loss for her family and friends, for the acting community and for her fans.
Descended from at least three generations of actors, Richardson was a proper Londoner who came to love the noise of New York, an elegant woman with large, lively eyes, a bright smile and a hearty laugh.
If she never quite attained the acting heights of her Academy Award-winning mother, she still had enjoyed a long and worthy career.
As an actress, Richardson was equally adept at passion and restraint, able to portray besieged women both confessional (as Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois) and confined (as the concubine in the futuristic horror of The Handmaid’s Tale).
Like other family members, she divided her time between stage and screen. On Broadway, she won a Tony for her performance as Sally Bowles in a 1998 revival of Cabaret.
She also appeared in New York in a production of Patrick Marber’s Closer in 1999 and a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire in 2005, in which she played Blanche opposite John Reilly’s Stanley Kowalski.
She met Neeson when they made their Broadway debuts in 1993, co-starring in Anna Christie, Eugene O’Neill’s drama about a former prostitute and the sailor who falls in love with her.
“The astonishing Natasha Richardson ... gives what may prove to be the performance of the season as Anna, turning a heroine who has long been portrayed [and reviled] as a whore with a heart of gold into a tough, ruthlessly unsentimental apostle of O’Neill’s tragic understanding of life,’’ New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote.
Richardson played the title character in Paul Schrader’s Patty Hearst, a 1988 biopic about the kidnapped heiress for which the actress became so immersed that even between scenes she wore a blindfold, the better to identify with her real-life counterpart.
Richardson later co-starred with Neeson in Nell and Mia Farrow in Widow’s Peak.
Richardson was born in London in 1963, the performing gene inherited not just from her parents — Redgrave and director Tony Richardson — but from her maternal grandparents — Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.
Her screen debut came at age four, when she appeared as a flower girl in The Charge of the Light Brigade, directed by her father, whose movies included The Entertainer.
Richardson sometimes remarked on the differences between her and her husband, Neeson — she from a theatrical dynasty and he from a working-class background in Northern Ireland.
“He’s more laid back, happy to see what happens, whereas I’m a doer and I plan ahead,” she told the Independent on Sunday in 2003.
She once said that Neeson’s serious injury in a 2000 motorcycle accident when he suffered a crushed pelvis after colliding with a deer, had made her really appreciate life.
“I wake up every morning feeling lucky, which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away,” she told the Daily Telegraph in 2003.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College
RSS