We must each have our own favourite screen memories of her: mine fight for prominence from a tangle of DH Lawrence’s Women in Love, Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, and Morecambe and Wise Christmas shows. Only Glenda Jackson could have triumphed in all three. And many more, of course. She was a superbly talented and committed actress. And we have lost her. At such a time obituaries struggle to cover the scope and range of their subject. Hers covered several pages.
Born in 1936, she hated school, left at 16 to work in the local Boots – then via a scholarship went to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It was a time when local education committees would help fund such ambition and Cheshire coughed up. She never looked back. Signed up by an agent, then touring in the local repertory companies that still dotted the country, she took the traditional but exacting route to the top – with talent fuelling her journey.
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