Secret Dreams: A Biography of Michael Redgrave. Alan Strachan (Hardback) 2004

SECRET DREAMS: A BIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL REDGRAVE. By Alan Strachan.

Of all the great actors of the twentieth century Michael Redgrave was the most wide ranging in his talent and yet the most private with a personal life of utmost complexity, often secret in its detail.

On stage he was a classical actor of range and greatness who also originated many memorable roles of the leading playwrights of the mid-twentieth century. In the cinema his first part was in Alfred Hitchcock's classic THE LADT VANISHES and he went on to be remembered i films as diverse as THE BROWNING VERSION, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST, THE DAM BUSTERS and THE GO-BETWEEN .

He wrote studies of acting, a novel, even an operetta at university, he adapted Henry James, and directed opera as well as plays. The son of actors, he married an actress and lived to see his children make names for themselves in theatre and films. Since his death several of his grandchildren have become the fourth generation of Redgraves to take to the stage and screen.

Using Redgrave's diaries and archives - made available for the first time - Alan Strachan, who directed some of Redgrave'a last appearances on the stage, has uncovered the full story of an unorthodox life, with private guilts, demons and tensions 'which informed the public work with so much of its uniquely troubling intensity.'

Ths first full biography examines the bisexuality that was part of his adult life and identifies many of his relationships during his marriage to Rachel Kempson, who had known from the outset of his divided nature.

Strachan's own knowledge of theatre informs the life of a great actor, whose name deserves to be remembered in its own right and not only as the progenitor of a remarkable dynasty of actors.

A hardback published in 2004 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (£25.00 r.r.p.)

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