British actor and political activist Corin Redgrave died 6 April 2010. Born 16 July 1939 in London, England, the son of actor Michael Redgrave and actress Rachel Kempson, his older sister was actress Vanessa Redgrave and his younger sister was actress Lynn Redgrave.
His stage debut came at the Royal Court Theater in 1962, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which was directed by Tony Richardson, who married sister Vanessa the same year).
His acting career was somewhat eclipsed by his sisters’ success, though some say it was due to his ardent left-wing political activisim. He was an outspoken Trotskyist, and had close ties with the British Socialist Labor League and the Workers Revolutionary Party. With Vanessa, he co-founded the Moving Theater, which focused on political works.
Most of his stage acting was in his homeland, but his few appearances on the US stage garnered him one Tony nomination, for best actor, in 1999 (for Not About Nightingales). He was best-known to US film audiences for a series of supporting roles in In the Name of the Father (1993), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), and Persuasion (1995). His first notable screen role was in A Man for All Seasons (1966). His genre appearances include: The Turn of the Screw (2009), Doctor Sleep (2002), two episodes of Ultraviolet (1998), Excalibur (1981), The Magus (1968), Mystery and Imagination‘s “Dracula” episode (1968), and A Study in Terror (1965).
In 1995, he wrote the book Michael Redgrave: My Father, which was made into a television documentary. And in 2004, he followed in his father’s footsteps, starring in King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
In addition to his sisters, he is survived by his two children from his first marriage, to Deirdre Hamilton-Hill (they divorced in 1981, after 19 years of marriage), his second wife, Kika Markham (they married in1985), and two children from that marriage, and grandchildren.