Chiswick actress honoured for stage and screen career as well as her charity work

Chiswick actress Vanessa Redgrave has been given a lifetime achievement award for her long-running stage and screen career, as well as her tireless charity work.

Actor Ralph Fiennes presented the veteran actress with the award at Harper's Bazaar magazine's Women of the Year ceremony and paid an emotional tribute both to Vanessa Redgrave and her late daughter, Natasha Richardson who died after a skiing accident earlier this year.

Fiennes told the audience, "You might think I'm a bit in love but I'm just a fan and a friend (of Vanessa), and if I am it's because of a great friendship I shared with Natasha and through that great friendship I've got to know Vanessa. Natasha was imbued with so many of your fantastic qualities as well as many of her own, and I feel blessed to have had that friendship, and thus through that friendship to have known Vanessa.

"If I think of a woman of truth, of loyalty, of integrity, of passion, of compassion, a woman with a great heart and a woman of all elements, I think of Vanessa Redgrave."

September 8, 2009