Sad News: Actress Natasha Richardson Dies
 

Actress Natasha Richardson Dies
Film, Stage Star Injured In Ski Accident
POSTED: Tuesday, March 17, 2009
UPDATED: 7:00 pm CDT March 18, 2009

A spokesman for the family of Natasha Richardson said she has died.

Richardson, the wife of Liam Neeson, was critically injured Monday during a skiing accident at Montreal's famed Mont Tremblant resort. She was treated at Sacre-Coeur hospital Monday night and left for the United States Tuesday.

A spokeswoman released a statement earlier saying, "Natasha Richardson fell in a beginners trail while taking a ski lesson at Station Mont Tremblant. She was accompanied by an experienced ski instructor who immediately called the ski patrol. She did not show any visible sign of injury but the ski patrol followed strict procedures and brought her back to the bottom of the slope and insisted she should see a doctor."

The release said that as additional precautionary measure, the ski instructor as well as the ski patrol accompanied Richardson to her hotel.

"They again recommended she should be seen by a doctor," the press release said.

"The ski instructor stayed with her at her hotel. Approximately an hour after the incident Mrs. Richardson was not feeling good. An ambulance was called and Mrs. Richardson was brought to the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste-Agathe and was later transferred to Hopital du Sacre-Coeur."

Richardson, 45, is the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and sister of actress Joely Richardson. She and Neeson have two sons.

Her film credits include "The Parent Trap" and "The Handmaid's Tale."

She won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1998 for her role in "Cabaret."


Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved.

Actress Natasha Richardson Dies - Entertainment News Story - KSAT San Antonio


Still don't understand what happened? :(

R.I.P.

very sad indeed.

R.I.P. :(

This is so sad, my sympathy to her family and friends.

Shocking news for everybody but especially for the family. They must be devastated.
RIP

Richardson's Ambulance Ride Confirms Condition
Posted Mar 18th 2009 10:08AM by TMZ Staff

TMZ has obtained information about Natasha Richardson's ambulance ride in New York to Lenox Hill Hospital -- she was "unconscious," her pupils "non-reactive," her skin was "pale" and she was suffering from "major head trauma."

We're told her husband Liam Neeson held her hand the entire time and caressed her face as he sat in silence.

We're also told when the plane landed in New Jersey, medics on board told members of the ambulance team that Richardson was "brain dead."

http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/18/richar...rms-condition/

Brain Trama:

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Richardson was a true daughter of the theater
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Critic – Wed Mar 18, 10:29 pm ET

NEW YORK – Natasha Richardson starred on Broadway in a quintet of strikingly different productions — each one demonstrating why the actress was a true daughter of the theater, a worthy member of an illustrious acting dynasty.

Richardson, who died Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital following a skiing accident in Canada, was loyal to the stage throughout her career (even while having a film career that included "Gothic," "Patty Hearst," "Nell" and "The Parent Trap").

Her most prominent New York appearance came a decade ago in the Roundabout Theatre Company's long-running revival of "Cabaret," for which she won a 1998 best-actress Tony.

Her blond, bobbed Sally Bowles was a lost child-woman, vulnerable and sexy at the same time. Richardson's extravagant portrait wisely didn't mimic Liza Minnelli's memorable film performance. The actress was not a singer, but her chilling rendition of the show's title tune got the genuine terror found beneath the song's cheery lyrics.

Richardson, schooled in the classics on stage in London, made her Broadway debut in 1993 in another Roundabout revival, Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie." In it, she played the title character, an unhappy young woman who falls from grace into the world's oldest profession.

Using a flat, nondescript Midwestern accent with just a trace of Swedish (Greta Garbo starred in the movie version), she projected an eerie sadness touched with more than a little youthful defiance.

Her co-star was Liam Neeson (also making his Broadway bow) as the big, gruff seafaring man who loves her. Their electricity was palpable on stage; they later married. In the production, which was superbly directed by David Leveaux, the two were evenly matched, able to surmount some of O'Neill's hoariest dialogue — ruminations about "dat ole davil sea" abound — and raise the stature of a difficult, rarely seen melodrama to great theater.

A year after "Cabaret," Richardson returned to Broadway in 1999's "Closer," Patrick Marber's scathing look at love and sex and the end of the 20th century. With an impeccable world-weariness, she played an arty photographer, one member of a quartet of characters who couple, uncouple and recouple with remarkable dexterity.

The actress came back to the Roundabout in 2005 to play one of the most famous roles in modern American drama, Blanche DuBois, in a revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Richardson's desperate Southern belle was more flinty than fragile, displaying a steeliness not usually found in this vulnerable, mentally unraveling woman. The actress excelled at disintegration, capturing Blanche's descent into madness with an unnerving dramatic intensity.

Richardson's most recent New York appearance was brief — a one-night-only, benefit-concert performance earlier this year of "A Little Night Music," the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical based on Ingmar Bergman's film "Smiles of a Summer Night."

The show — a rueful recollection of love, old and new, wise and foolish — offered Richardson a chance to play the daughter to her real-life mother, Vanessa Redgrave.

There were tantalizing rumors that mother and daughter would star in a full production on Broadway, a wish that now will be sadly unrealized.

Richardson was a true daughter of the theater