There was never anything shrinking about the confidence Glenda Jackson projected on stage and screen in her heyday. Afflicted with an uncommon common sense, her characters were defined by their sharp intelligence, independence and, yes, irritability. They were nobody’s fool, even when they wound up with the short end of the stick.
Jackson, who died Thursday at her home in London after a short illness at age 87, was one of the leading British actors of her generation. A two-time Academy Award winner (“Women in Love,” “A Touch of Class”), she rose to prominence as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, working with director Peter Brook on his path-breaking production of Peter Weiss’ “Marat/Sade,” an Artaud-inspired assault on the senses and a Brechtian call to revolution that became a cultural touchstone on Broadway and was later turned into a film.
Born to a working-class family in northwest England outside of Liverpool, Jackson became a symbol of a more liberated era, one in which actresses no longer had to be posh or properly submissive to be admired. She had toughness, smarts and political commitment, the last of which grew so strong that she took a leave from acting to become a full-time politician, representing her London district as a member of Parliament’s House of Commons for 23 years.
