Natasha Richardson

Born: 11 May 1963
Where: London, England, UK

The star - part of the Redgrave acting dynasty - first attracted attention as Mary Shelley, possibly the only good thing about Ken Russell's Gothic.

She has gone onto to star in diverse roles ranging from German director Volker Schlondorff's sci-fi chiller The Handmaid's Tale to Disney's The Parent Trap.

She made her film debut aged four, playing a bridesmaid to her mother Vanessa Redgrave in The Charge of the Light Brigade, directed by her father, Tony Richardson.

Training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, she began her career in regional theatre with Leeds Playhouse.

(After overhearing comments about her playing alongside her mother in a version of The Seagull she decided to distance her family when taking on acting commitments.)

She made her New York debut reprising the role of Anna Christie, picking up several accolades, including a Tony nomination, and later marrying her co-star, Liam Neeson.

Her film debut proper came in 1986, as Frankenstein authoress Mary Shelley in Russell's bizarre Gothic alongside Gabriel Byrne.

In 1998, after a respite to give birth to her two sons, she returned to work as Sally Bowles in director Sam Mendes' staging of Cabaret.

She was appropriately sensual as a vicar's wife in Pat O'Connor's underrated A Month in the Country and offered a stunning portrayal of heiress-turned-terrorist Patty Hearst in Paul Schrader's biopic.

The Comfort of Strangers cast her as half of a torpid pair of tourists whose lives and persons are violated during a stay at a stranger's Italian villa.

She teamed onscreen with husband Neeson as doctors examining a "wild child" (Jodie Foster) in Nell and was the ex-wife of Dennis Quaid whom their twin daughters try to reunite in the 1998 remake of Disney's The Parent Trap.

The same year she and her husband successfully sued for libel a number of newspapers who suggested that their marriage was on the rocks.

In 2002, Richardson had a featured role in the comedy Waking Up in Reno about two couples who travel to Reno for a monster truck convention.

She was also particularly noticeable as an obnoxious blueblooded New York socialite in Maid in Manhattan with Jennifer Lopez.

Recent work includes the part of an adulteress wife who has an affair with a mental patient in the Patrick Marber-scripted Asylum.