4 Generations of the Redgrave Dynasty

The Redgraves, perhaps the most extensive film family of renown, are descended from Australian silent-era actor Roy Redgrave, who died fairly young in 1920, and his British wife Margaret Scudamore (who appeared in a handful of films in the 1930s and 1940s). Their son, Michael, followed the family trade and was accomplished enough to be knighted (primarily in recognition of his stage acting, not his screen work).

Sir Michael Redgrave's first film was the lighthearted Alfred Hitchcock political thriller The Lady Vanishes, in which he plays a charming young musician who while traveling through Europe on a train joins forces with a young woman no one else believes when she insists that a fellow passenger has gone missing.

Others include film adaptations of the plays The Browning Version and The Importance of Being Earnest, the war film The Dam Busters, the social drama The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and the horror classics Dead of Night and The Innocents.

Sir Michael's three children all went into acting: Vanessa has had the most success, starring in the mod thriller Blow-Up and the musical Camelot in 1966 and the provocative 1971 witch-hunting drama The Devils; at 73 years old, she's still going strong.

Lynn's career was been somewhat more modest than her older sister's, though she had her own 1960s hit in Georgy Girl and was still working regularly up to her death in 2010. Corin also died that year, after more than four decades in the movies, but was in few well-known films.

Among the youngest generation of actors of Redgrave stock is Joely Richardson, the daughter of Vanessa and British stage director Tony Richardson, who has worked on the big and small screens since the 1980s; her older sister Natasha acted until she died in a skiing accident in 2009. Their half-brother Carlo Gabriel Nero, son of Italian actor Franco Nero, has directed and written a handful of films.

Jemma Redgrave, daughter of Corin, is a younger contemporary who has acted steadily, mostly on TV, for nearly 25 years; her brother Luke is a busy camera operator. Annabel Clark, Lynn's older daughter, is a photographer who has worked on film productions, and her younger sister worked on a couple of projects in the 1990s.