Glenda Jackson

Glenda May Jackson, CBE (born 9 May 1936) is a British Labour Party politician and a two time Oscar winning actress, who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1992 and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn.

She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate, having been first elected in 1992. After constituency changes for the 2010 general election, her majority of 42 votes was one of the closest results of the entire election.^[1].

As an actress, she won Academy Awards for Women in Love and A Touch of Class emerging as one of the greatest actresses of second half of the 20th Century.

Early life and education

Jackson was born in Birkenhead on the Wirral, Cheshire (now Merseyside) where her father was a bricklayer. Jackson was educated at the West Kirby County Grammar School for Girls, then worked for two years in a Boots chemist shop, before studying at RADA in Bloomsbury.

Career in acting

Having studied acting at RADA, Jackson made her professional stage debut in Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables in 1957, and her film debut in This Sporting Life in 1963. Subsequently a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for four years, she worked for director Peter Brook in several productions, including of Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade as Charlotte Corday. Jackson also appeared in the film version.

Glenda Jackson in A Touch of Class.

Fame came with Jackson's starring role in the controversial Women in Love (1969) for which she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress, and another controversial role as Tchaikovsky's nymphomaniac wife in Ken Russell's The Music Lovers added to her image of being prepared to do almost anything for her art. She confirmed this by having her head shaved in order to play Queen Elizabeth I of England in the BBC's 1971 blockbuster serial, Elizabeth R. She received two Emmy Awards for her work in this series. She also appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Show in 1971, playing Cleopatra in a comedy sketch. This led to many other appearances on the show, including the Christmas Shows of 1971 and 1972.

Filmmaker Melvin Frank saw her comedic potential and offered her the lead female role in his next project. She earned a second Academy Award for Best Actress for A Touch of Class (1973). Eric and Ernie apparently sent her a telegram saying: 'Stick with us kid, and we'll get you a third!'. She also portrayed Queen Elizabeth in a film about the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. She has been recognized as one of Britain's leading actresses. In 1978, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The Glenda Jackson Theatre, on the Borough Road campus of Wirral Metropolitan College, Birkenhead, was named after her in 1983.^[2] It closed in 2003, and was demolished by Wirral Council, to make way for a new housing estate, in 2004.^[3]

Career in politics

Jackson retired from acting in order to enter the House of Commons in the 1992 general election as the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate. After the 1997 general election, she was appointed a junior minister in the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, with responsibility for London Transport, a post she resigned before an attempt to be nominated as the Labour Party candidate for the election of the first Mayor of London in 2000. The nomination was eventually won by Frank Dobson, who lost the election to Ken Livingstone, the independent candidate. In the 2005 general election, she received 14,615 votes, representing 38.29% of the votes cast in the constituency.

As a high profile backbencher she became a regular critic of Blair over his plans to introduce top-up fees in England. She also called for him to resign following the Judicial Enquiry by Lord Hutton in 2003 surrounding the reasons for going to war in Iraq and the death of government adviser Dr. David Kelly. Jackson was generally considered to be a traditional left-winger, often disagreeing with the dominant Blairite governing Third Way faction in the Labour Party.

By October 2005, her problems with Blair's leadership swelled to a point where she threatened to challenge the Prime Minister as a stalking horse candidate in a leadership contest if he didn't stand down within a reasonable amount of time. On 31 October 2006, Jackson was one of 12 Labour MPs to back Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party's call for an inquiry into the Iraq War.^[4]

Her constituency boundaries changed for the 2010 general election. The Gospel Oak and Highgate wards became part of Holborn & St Pancras, and the new Hampstead & Kilburn ward will switched into Brent to include Brondesbury, Kilburn and Queens Park wards (from the old Brent East and Brent South seats). On 6 May 2010, Jackson was elected as the MP for the new Hampstead and Kilburn constituency with a margin of 42 votes over Conservative Chris Philp and Liberal Democrat Edward Fordham. Due to both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats targeting the seat highly, she had the second closest result and second smallest majority of any MP in the 2010 election.

She has one son by her ex-husband, Roy Hodges, whom she married in 1958 and divorced in 1976.

Filmography

References

External links

• Glenda Jackson MP official constituency website
• Camden Labour Party
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Glenda Jackson at the Internet Movie Database
• Glenda Jackson at the Internet Broadway Database
• Glenda Jackson at the British Film Institute's Screenonline