Glenda Jackson, an Oscar-winning actress and politician, has passed away at the age of 87.
“Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London, this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side,” her agent Lionel Larner said in a statement.
“She recently completed filming ‘The Great Escaper’ in which she co-starred with Michael Caine,” he continued.
Jackson was one of the biggest British stars of the 1960s and 1970s and won two Academy Awards, for “Women in Love” and “A Touch of Class.”
On both occasions, she declined to attend the Hollywood ceremony. In the 1990s, she devoted herself to politics despite her successful career in the entertainment industry, during which she won two Emmys and a Tony.
After more than three decades on stage and screen, Jackson took her no-nonsense, straightforward approach to politics, incensed by the harm she believed former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was inflicting on the working classes.
She was elected Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992 and served as deputy transport minister from 1997 to 1999 during Sir Tony Blair’s premiership, despite becoming a prominent critic of his New Labour initiative.
“We must work for the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the frail, the sick,” she told her supporters as she was sworn into office.
However, she returned to acting and won awards after she resigned as a member of parliament following the 2015 general election.
She portrayed a woman with dementia in Elizabeth Is Missing in 2019 and earned the TV BAFTA for best actress the following year. She also received acclaim for her performance as King Lear on stage.
Jackson was married from 1958 to 1976 to stage director Roy Hodges. She is survived by their son, Daniel, who was born in 1969.
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