19 March, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Very sad news about Natasha Richardson’s death.  When I heard the news I couldn’t help but think about my trip to the theatre last October to see her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, perform in The Year of Magical Thinking. That play, a searing one-woman show, had Redgrave portraying a mother struggling with grief over her adult daughter’s death (based on the life of Joan Didion).  Now the same exact thing has happened to Redgrave in real life. The similarities are striking.

I never saw Richardson on the stage, though I remember liking Widow’s Peak, which also starred Mia Farrow and is a nice light-hearted Irish film from the early nineties.  Worth checking out.

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1. william Says:

   March 19th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

   Oh! That’s right! Vanessa Redgrave was in The Year of Magical Thinking.

   I read in the paper that Joan Didion and Meryl Streep were there at Richardson bedside and wondered why Didion was there with the family.

   I never made that connection, until you pointed it out about Didion’s book being about her daughter’s death and Vanessa Redgrave, who played Didion onstage, is going through the same thing…

   Eerie!

2. Caroline Says:

   March 19th, 2009 at 8:28 pm

   Like Jade Goody, two children who will now not have their mother. So sad.

3. Ken Says:

   March 19th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

   Except of course, that Vanessa’s boys will have Liam Neeson as a dad, and Jade’s boys will have a twice convicted petty criminal. I feel bad for all these boys losing their mother, but I have to admit the lawyer in me is very curious to know just who, exactly, is going to control all this money she obtained for the kids? Inquiring minds want to know!

4. Anglofille Says:

   March 19th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

   Jack Tweed isn’t actually the boys’ father, so the boys won’t be living with him. Still, I’m not sure their new guardians will be much better. As for the money, I hope it’s in a trust fund because I wouldn’t trust anyone surrounding Jade Goody.

5. Ken Says:

   March 19th, 2009 at 9:50 pm

   Any halfway decent lawyer, Anglofille, will tell you that saying it’s in trust is just the beginning of the inquiry–if you represent those boys anyway.

   Hence my question: Just what and where exactly is this trust, who exactly is the trustee and what are his (her? their?) fee arrangements? All this info is public record in the States. I don’t have much confidence in the incompetence/criminal culture of England.

   Just a rhetorical question.

   If some legimitate person or people are doing this pro bono, well, good for them.