Natasha Richardson was born in London in 1963 into one of Britain’s most famous acting families, the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson. But famous parents did not mean a carefree childhood.
After her parents separated, she and her siblings lived between two very different worlds: their mother working to support them in West London, and their wealthy father hosting extravagant gatherings in the South of France. As a teenager she found her own gift for bringing people together, cooking enormous meals for up to 30 guests.
She went on to build a respected acting career of her own, and after a first marriage that ended in divorce, she met Liam Neeson during Broadway’s Anna Christie in 1993. They married in 1994 and settled in an 1810 farmhouse in Millbrook, New York, where they raised their two sons.
Her life was cut short in March 2009, when a fall while skiing in Quebec caused an undetected brain injury that proved fatal; she died in New York aged 45. She is remembered as an accomplished actress and devoted mother who, after a childhood shaped by other people’s fame, built a warm home and a life that was unmistakably her own.