Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave was born in Bristol on March 20, 1908 and died in Denham on March 21, 1985. He was an English actor and the son of the Australian silent film star Roy Redgrave and the actress Margaret Scudamore. He graduated from Cambridge University and was briefly a schoolmaster before becoming an actor in 1934. His first major film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes in 1938.
Redgrave moved to Hollywood after a successful career in the British theatre. His first major American role was opposite Rosalind Russell in Mourning Becomes Electra in 1947, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the early 1950s, he starred in the films The Browning Version 1951, The Importance of Being Earnest 1952 and 1984 1956.
Redgrave was knighted in 1959 and he was married to the actress Rachel Kempson for fifty years from 1935 until his death. He is the father of the actors Corin Redgrave and Carlo Gabriel Nero and the actresses Lynn Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave, as well as the grandfather of the actresses Natasha Richardson, Joely Richardson and Jemma Redgrave. He died in a Denham nursing home from Parkinson's disease in 1985, aged 77. He is the author of a play "The Aspern Papers" (based on a short story by Henry James) and four books:
- The Actor's Ways and Means
- Mask or Face
- The Mountebank Tale
- In My Mind's Eye
