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Her employment problems began on the night in 1978 when she accepted an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for Julia. As militant Jewish groups picketed outside to denounce a pro-Palestinian documentary film she had financed by selling her house in Britain, Redgrave injudiciously responded in a speech telecast worldwide. In words aimed at the protesters, she told Academy voters, "You have stood firm and refused to be intimidated by a small band of Zionist hoodlums who have insulted Jews all over the world in their struggle against fascism and Nazism." Heard out of context, the phrase gave birth to a mistaken belief that Redgrave regarded all Jews as hoodlums.
Even producers and directors who grasped her position -- that Palestinians have homeland rights, which Israel must accommodate -- often passed her by for the sake of convenience. "It's not surprising that she's perceived by most Jewish people as anti-Jewish," says her ex-husband, director Tony Richardson. "She has created this image for herself, which makes her almost uncastable in a leading role in Hollywood. She's totally unrealistic in her attitude: when she says 'Zionism,' she thinks she isn't talking about Jews. But there isn't a single bit of anti-Semitic blood in Vanessa." Embittered, Redgrave nowadays declines to cooperate on articles -- including this one -- unless the publication pledges in writing not even to mention her politics.
Although she makes films elsewhere, Hollywood has not cast Redgrave since Yanks in 1979. She has secured only sporadic U.S. TV work. Other actors report that merely suggesting her for a role is enough to damage their own careers. The protest peaked in 1982, when the woman whom Redgrave was playing called for her to be ousted from the Emmy-winning lead in Arthur Miller's CBS-TV drama Playing for Time. Politics also excluded her from being cast in the Broadway drama Plenty. That same year, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, allegedly fearful of disruptions and of losing donor support, dumped Redgrave from scheduled performances as narrator of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. She brought a civil rights suit pleading that "people's livelihoods should not depend upon their holding 'correct' political views." The U.S. Supreme Court last January rejected her bid for a punitive-damages award, although it let stand a judgment of $39,500 to cover lost employment -- an amount far smaller than the legal fees she spent fighting for her principles.
Happily, thus far Orpheus has met no protest, according to co-producer Elizabeth McCann. Says she: "Redgrave is controversial, and controversy brings a certain degree of risk. I'm not kidding myself that there aren't people out there still deeply hurt or offended by her views."
The unorthodoxy of her political life has extended at times to her personal life. After Richardson began an affair with actress Jeanne Moreau and thereby precipitated the end of an already troubled marriage, Redgrave had a romance with actor Franco Nero, with whom she had a son, Carlo, now 19. More recently, she shared bed and the boards with actor Timothy Dalton, almost ten years her junior (and the latest James Bond), who was her Antony and Petruchio in the repertory triumphs of 1986.