Vanessa Redgrave
The Redgrave family are one of cinema's acting dynasties that have bee gracing our screen since the silent era of movies.
It was Roy Redgrave that was the patriarch of the Redgrave family making his theatre debut in 1900 alongside his wife Ellen Maud Pratt .
After Ellen discovered that her husband was having an affair Roy followed his mistress to South Africa before moving onto Australia. Here he performed in Sydney in Sunday alongside Tittell Brune before touring with her.
He was convinced to return home by Ellen and he began appearing in the Grand Theatre in Brighton. Here he met Daisy Scudmore, who he married and had a son Michael.
However six months after he was born Roy moved to Australia permanently and began performing in Melbourne. After an expensive theatre flop in 1911 he turned his attention to silent movies starting with The Christian.
He died in 1922.
It was his son Michael that followed in the acting footsteps of his father, after being a schoolmaster. He made his debut in 1934 at the Liverpool Playhouse in Counsellor at Law, in which he played Roy Darwin.
He spent two years with the Liverpool Repertory Company, where he met his wife Rachel Kempson, before moving on to Love's Labours Lost at the Old Vic.
Over the next few years he appeared in As You Like it, Henry V, Richard II and The School for Scandal before the theatres closed during the war.
But during this time he was also juggling a film career, making his debut in Secret Agent in 1936. However his first major role came in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes in 1938.
And although he predominantly known as a theatre actor he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Mourning Becomes Electra as well as starring in The Importance of Being Earnest and The Dambusters.
It was to be his daughter Vanessa that was to carry on the Redgrave's acting reputation, she is also the most successful scooping an Academy Awards, Golden Globe, Emmy, Tony and Olivier Awards.
The actress, who's birth was announced at the Old Vic by actor Laurence Olivier made her West End debut in 1958 before landing her first starring role two years later in The Tiger and the Horse.
As well as a enviable theatre CV she has also found success on the big screen as she landed a Best Actress nomination in 1968 for her role in Isadora and Mary, Queen of Scots in 1971.
She finally got her hand on the Oscar in 1977 when she won for Julia. She has picked up two other nominations in her career for The Bostonians in 1984 and Howards End in 1992.
Vanessa's sister Lynn Redgrave also followed the family tradition by taking up acting as a profession making her theatre debut in 1962 at the Royal Court Theatre in a production f A Midsummer night's Dream.
Her theatre career took off as she moved into the West End before joining The National Theatre at the Old Vic where she performed in The Recruiting Officer, Hay Fever, Love for Love and many others over the next three years.
Like her sister and father before her she began juggling a theatre and film career with great success as she landed an Oscar nomination for her role in Georgy Girl.
Natasha Richardson followed her mother Vanessa into acting, making her big screen debut in 1968 in her father's The Charge of the Light Brigade.
She moved up to Leeds to work in the West Yorkshire Playhouse before making her West End debut in The Seagull in 1985.
Like her mother and grandfather before her she worked in both film and theatre, finding most success in the later.
She won a Tony Award for her role in Cabaret as well as being nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 1999, which was her return to Broadway.
Her sister Joely Richardson has also found success as an actor and is best known for her role as Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck.
Vanessa and Lynn's brother Corin also forged an acting career, mainly in the theatre, and his daughter Jemma Redgrave has found success working in British TV.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Natasha Richardson