CAUSE OF DEATH: Actress, Glenda Jackson, has passed away

Actress, Glenda Jackson, has passed away.

The double Oscar-winner served as Labour MP for 23 years for Hampstead and Highgate, which had been a Tory seat for two decades.

A founding signatory of the Anti-Nazi League in 1977, she continued to champion the left in Parliament, proving a staunch critic of Tony Blair’s New Labour and the Iraq war.

She threatened to stand against Blair for the party leadership in 2005 unless he announced his intention to quit.

Following Thatcher’s death in 2013, she described the former Tory PM of having “inflicted heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon the country.”

What was Glenda Jackson’s cause of death?

Glenda’s death was announced by her agent Lionel Larner, who released a statement providing some limited details about the circumstances.

“Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side,” the statement read. “Today we lost one of the world’s greatest actresses and I have lost a best friend of over fifty years.”

The statement doesn’t detail any specific cause of death, so anything past a “brief illness” remains a mystery. Of course, at the age of 87, a generally weakened immune system can make the body more prone to illness in general.

We may never know the exact cause of Glenda’s death, but what is clear from both looking at her biography and at the many tributes that have come pouring in since the news broke is that she will be missed.

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Double Oscar-winning actress and former UK Labour MP Glenda Jackson dies aged 87 after brief illness, agent says https://t.co/LF5RWAwJc9

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) June 15, 2023

Glenda was a successful actor for several decades.

Glenda won her Oscars for Women in Love and A Touch of Class, and after several decades as a full-time performer, she decided to shift her career away from acting and toward politics. Glenda became a Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in the 1992 election, and her political career lasted for several decades until she retired in 2015.

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More recently, Glenda had returned to the world of acting, and reports suggest that she had just finished filming a movie called The Great Escaper alongside Michael Caine. In 2018, she won a Tony Award for her performance in Three Tall Women, proving that she had not lost a beat since the 1970s. In both the acting world and the political realm, those who knew Glenda expressed their sorrow at the news of her death.

In a statement, Jackson’s agent Lionel Lerner told our sister site Deadline that she “died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London… after a brief illness with her family at her side.” A specific cause of death was not disclosed.In a statement, Jackson’s agent Lionel Lerner told our sister site Deadline that she “died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London… after a brief illness with her family at her side.” A specific cause of death was not disclosed.

Jackson’s career spanned seven decades, during which she won a pair of Academy Awards (for 1970’s Women in Love and 1973’s A Touch of Class), two Emmys (for her role as Elizabeth I in the 1971 BBC miniseries Elizabeth R) and a Tony (for the 2018 revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women). Across the pond, she took home the BAFTA for Best Actress in a Leading Role for 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, and the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for the 2019 TV-movie Elizabeth Is Missing — a role that also earned her the honor of TVLine’s Performer of the Week upon its Stateside debut in January 2021.

Labour MP and shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell, who used to work for and alongside Jackson, has recalled the “incredibly kind” politician.

“This is very sad news. In my early twenties I worked for Glenda, a decade later our MPs’ offices were next door,” Ms Powell tweeted.

“She was always incredibly kind and supportive to me.

“I will also remember her cutting humour, general disdain at most things, all while smoking!”

Also paying tribute, MP Diane Abbott called her “a kind and extremely principled woman.”