Glenda Jackson was an English actress and former UK politician.
She was born on May 9, 1936 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England to Harry Jackson and Joan Jackson. Her father was a bricklayer and her mother was a house cleaner and barmaid.
The first of four daughters, she was educated at Holy Trinity Church of England and Cathcart Street primary schools, followed by West Kirby County Grammar School for Girls in nearby West Kirby, and performed in the Townswomen’s Guild drama group in her teens.
Jackson then joined an amateur theater group as a teenager before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1954.
Following graduating, she starred on London’s West End and made her Broadway debut in 1965 in a production of “Marat/Sade.”
Jackson became famous in the 1970s. She won her first best actress Oscar, for playing the wayward Gudrun Brangwen in Ken Russell’s “Women in Love” (1969). Her second was for the 1973 romantic comedy “A Touch of Class” – two years after her notable depictions of Queen Elizabeth I in both the BBC’s biographic film “Elizabeth R” and the historical drama “Mary, Queen of Scots.”
In 1992, she switched to politics, becoming a Labour MP while the party was in opposition. She was an MP for 23 years, during which her party came to power in a landslide under former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
During that time, Jackson was appointed a junior transport minister in 1997 and held the post for two years. She made a bid to become mayor of London in 2000, however lost to independent candidate Ken Livingstone.
Following stepping down as an MP in 2015, Glenda returned to TV screens in 2019 production Elizabeth Is Missing, in which she portrayed an elderly woman suffering from the early stages of dementia and won a Bafta for the role in 2020.
Her latest on-screen project, “The Great Escaper,” is in post-production, according to IMDb.
Jackson was married to stage director Roy Hodges from 1958 to 1976.
She died on June 15, 2023, at the age of 87 at her home in Blackheath, London, United Kingdom.
Glenda Jackson is survived by her son, British newspaper columnist, Daniel Pearce Jackson Hodges.