Vanessa Redgrave has opened up about the tragic death of her daughter Natasha Richardson following a skiing accident.
The Parent Trap actor died in 2009, two days after hitting her head while undertaking a beginner’s lesson at a resort in Mont Tremblant, Canada.
Initially deciding she felt fine, Richardson returned to her hotel room – but was taken to a local hospital after falling ill 45 minutes later. The following day, she was airlifted to a New York hospital and placed on life support.
The 45-year-old’s family made the decision to switch off life support and she died with her husband, the actor Liam Neeson, by her side. An autopsy found she had suffered epidural hematoma (bleeding on the brain) after a blunt blow to the head.
Last year, Richardson’s sister, Nip/Tuck actor Joely Richardson, opened up about the “devastating” turn of events. Now, on what would have been Natasha’s 62nd birthday, she shared a message on behalf of her mother, 88.
“Today would have been my sister Tasha’s birthday,” Joely, 60, wrote. “I asked my Ma if she’d like to say anything. This is what she dictated to me.”
Redgrave replied: “We were in Greece. We sat drinking our coffees in Constitution Square. Tony said if the baby was a boy we should call him Tom. I said if she was a girl I would like her to be called Natasha after Tolstoy ‘s War and Peace.
“Our Natasha, as yes she was a girl, came swimming out of my womb ready for anything.
“I can’t believe that she isn’t swimming somewhere now, in one of the pools or seas we explored. I will never be reconciled to her dying in the snow, and I’m sure that every mother who has lost a child will have that pain always.”
In 2024, Joely said it took her “about five years to get over the shock and trauma and horror” of losing Natasha in an “unimaginable” way.
She told The Times: “We didn’t know it was going to be the end. Work released me – I was covered for insurance for a few days. I grabbed a tiny bag and jumped on the plane to New York. As a result, I didn’t have any clothes or anything with me.”
The actor added that taking Natasha’s role as the family organiser “didn’t come to me easily”.
“It was a very strange transition that took years to happen,” she continued. “I wasn’t doing it consciously. I was just getting on with it as anyone does when someone dies and the family absolutely goes into crisis.
“It wasn’t just about children being left without a mother. It was about the ramifications for me. I hadn’t lived a day of my life without Tash. I didn’t know the world without her.”
Natasha and Joely are the daughters of Redgrave and film writer, director and producer Tony Richardson, to whom Redgrave was married between 1961 and 1967.
Tony, the filmmaker behind kitchen-sink classics Look Back in Anger (1959) and A Taste of Honey (1961), won the Oscar for Best Director in 1964 for period comedy Tom Jones. He died of complications from Aids in 1991, aged 63.
Redgrave had son Carlo Gabriel, an Italian-British screenwriter, film director and producer, with actor Franco Nero, in 1969. After a marriage to Bond actor Timothy Dalton from 1971 to 1986, Redgrave eventually wedded Nero in 2006.
Redgrave’s credits include A Man for All Seasons, Blowup (both 1966), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Atonement (2004).
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