Actor Corin Redgrave has died at the age of 70. The Laurence Olivier Award-winning performer passed away at a South London hospital after being taken ill on Sunday.
A statement issued by his wife Kika Markham said the actor died “very peacefully surrounded by his family”.
The son of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, and brother of Vanessa and Lyn, Corin Redgrave made his professional stage debut in 1961, when he played Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Court, and went on to appear in Chips With Everything, which transferred to Broadway in 1963.
He was soon working on screen as well as on stage, beginning his film career with Crooks In Cloisters and his television career with a small part in The Avengers, both in 1964. He went on to build a screen career that included A Man For All Seasons, Oh! What A Lovely War, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Shackleton, Trial And Retribution, Shameless, Spooks and, most recently, the BBC adaptation of The Turn Of The Screw which aired in the winter of 2009.
On stage, Redgrave received his Laurence Olivier Award for his 1998 performance as Boss Whalen in the National Theatre production of Not About Nightingales, which subsequently transferred to Broadway. He appeared with his sister Vanessa in productions including Song At Twilight and The Cherry Orchard, and worked regularly with the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, most recently taking the role of King Lear in 2005.
Redgrave had suffered from health scares during the last decade. In 2000, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and in 2005 he suffered a heart attack while showing support for a traveller site and addressing Basildon councillors, which forced him to withdraw from performing in Pericles Prince Of Tyre at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Redgrave is survived by his wife Kika Markham and his children Luke, Arden, Harvey and the actress Jemma Redgrave.
MA