At the opening of his superb new biography
Vanessa: The Life of Vanessa Redgrave, author
Dan Callahan takes readers back to 1997 when he was a drama student in New York. From a discount-price, obstructed view seat the young Callahan watched the great Vanessa Redgrave as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra. At the end of the performance, a matinee at the Public Theater, Redgrave solemnly informed the audience that she had just received word of the death of
Fred Zinnemann who had directed her Oscar winning performance in
Julia two decades earlier. Redgrave praised Zinnemann's Western film classic
High Noon, citing it as a brave statement against the obsessive anti-Communism that pervaded American society in the early 1950s. Then, in her soft British accent, Redgrave astonished the audience by launching into a rendition of the theme to
High Noon, a twangy ballad ("Do not forsake me, oh my darling!...") originally sung by Tex Ritter.
The crowd drifted out of the theater as Redgrave continued through the verses of the song but Callahan was transfixed. Nearly twenty years later, his fascination with Redgrave has not diminished.
"I just can’t get enough of watching her. I think that there is something very special going on when she acts, and I wanted to celebrate that," Callahan told
The Committee Room.
