Exclusive interview with author Tim Adler and a review of his biography of the theatrical dynasty
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Tony Richardson had, to my mind, been unfairly airbrushed out of British film and television history,” says author Tim Adler. “I contacted his daughter, the actress Natasha Richardson. We were in the middle of drawing up an agreement between us when I turned on the television in March 2009 to see the appalling news that she had died in a skiing accident. Following Natasha’s death the Redgrave family did not want the book written or published. Happily, The Sunday Times of London campaigned to have the book made available and (British publishing house) Aurum Press published The House of Redgrave.”
This book is not an authorized biography and offers an intriguing insight into the bohemian lives of the three Redgrave children, Vanessa, Lynn and Corin. But there is far more detail about Vanessa’s former husband Richardson, who won two Academy Awards for Tom Jones (1964) and was also an accomplished theatre director and leading member of the new wave of ‘Angry Young Men’ of British stage and screen in the late 1950s. The book, which is an easy read with short chapters and quotes about the family, is far more personal than professional in its focus.
One interesting vignette is when Adler tells of Laurence Olivier on stage after Michael Redgrave, well known Shakespearean actor and father of Vanessa, Lynn and Corin, had just performed in the role of Laertes. Olivier announces, “Ladies and gentleman, tonight a great actress was born: Laertes has a daughter.” That daughter was Vanessa Redgrave.
“The House Of Redgrave was sparked by the first holiday I ever had outside of England,” says Adler. “When I was 18, I was invited to stay at Tony Richardson’s house, near St Tropez in the South of France. At the time I had no idea who Tony was, let alone that in the early 1960s he was the equivalent of Quentin Tarantino in terms of how in demand he was.”
“The most enjoyable part of writing any non-fiction book is doing the research and interviewing people, whether it was Michael Douglas for my book The Producers, about the qualities you need to be a successful movie producer, or talking to a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who successfully prosecuted Mafiosi involved in movie industry extortion for my book Hollywood and the Mob.”
“After Hollywood and the Mob came out, the Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist Anthony Summers and his wife Robbyn sat me down and taught me how they research their books,” says Adler. ‘Before I assumed that if something was in a book it must be true, Tony showed me how to find the magazine article or newspaper clipping each book reference came from, eventually building a library of cross-referenced files.”
“Two particular treasure troves of material for The House of Redgrave were the BBC Archive Centre in Berkshire, which has microfiche transcripts of every single BBC radio broadcast,” says Adler, “and The V&A Theatre Collection, which houses handwritten letters from each Redgrave family member, including one from Vanessa to her father dramatically calling off her engagement to the father of the current Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Adler’s first book, The Producers: Money, Movies and Who Really Calls the Shots, was published by Methuen in 2004. Bloomsbury published Adler’s Hollywood and the Mob in 2007, which The Mail On Sunday named Book of the Week and the Daily Mail made a Critic’s Choice. Until 2012, Adler was London editor of Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke’s entertainment news website. He’s written for The Hollywood Reporter, The Times of London and The Daily Telegraph.
Tim Adler lives in London. He grew up in Nottingham.
The House of Redgrave: The Lives of a Theatrical Dynasty by Tim Adler. Hardback, Pages: 384, Publisher: Aurum Press, Limited, Publication date: 4/1/2013 ISBN-13: 9781845136239 $29.95
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