52 years after her first nomination, Glenda Jackson is a Tony winner
ON STAGE after winning her first Tony Award, Glenda Jackson gave a gracious acceptance speech. Backstage, she was a little more blunt.
Asked what it meant to be recognised for her work on Broadway after a lengthy career that has taken her from the theatre to Westminster and back again, Jackson was characteristically direct.
“I was tempted to say, ‘It has taken you long enough.’ But I decided it was too rude, so I didn’t,” she said.
She did have a point. This was Jackson’s fifth Tony nomination – 30 years since her last, and 52 years after her first, for Marat/sade in 1966.
The 82-year-old won best lead actress in a play for her performance as a cantankerous widow in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women.
Backstage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, reporters took their chances and ventured questions.
“You’ve had a beautiful career in showbusiness,” one began, only to be cut off by Jackson’s withering: “Oh, really? You could have fooled me.”
Was there anything she would like to ask Albee if he were here today?
“In his script he gives very detailed instructions for the actor. I tried to cross them all out because I didn’t think they were very good,” she said. As for her relationship with Albee when he was alive: “There was no meeting of minds there at all.”
Jackson was asked about her biggest challenge. “It’s actually getting up out of bed in the morning,” she replied. “When I left being a Member of Parliament I said to the girls in my office, oh, I’m going to have a life of utter irresponsibility, it’ll be marvellous… in fact the responsibility is even greater because who does get you out of bed in the morning if you’re not working? Only you.”
The two-time Oscar winner returned to acting in 2016, after 23 years as MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, to play King Lear at the Old Vic.
She also paid tribute to Broadway audiences. “The thing that amazes me is people wait outside for autographs and they’ve got playbills of plays I did three, four decades ago. That’s pretty staggering,” Jackson said.
On stage, she made subtle references to Donald Trump and US immigration policies. “There are people in this audience, in this country, in this city, from every other country in the world, and you are always welcoming and kind and generous. And America has never needed that more. But then America is always great,” she said.
Robert De Niro used no such niceties. While introducing a musical interlude by Bruce Springsteen, he declared: “F--- Trump,” which earned a standing ovation from the audience.
It was a good night for British theatre. Andrew Garfield won lead actor in a play for Angels in America, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child won five awards including best director for John Tiffany, and Andrew Lloyd Webber received a lifetime achievement award.