pensable support for EFORE he bestowed JOHN SAFER’s gleaming Lynn Redgrave Receives the 2003 the gala. In reply B sculpture on this year’s recipient of the they said they looked Gielgud trophy, Guild president JOHN ANDREWS Gielgud Trophy at Gramercy Park forward to an even shared several messages. larger part in the In one PATRICK STEWART, who said he’d been “a Kathleen Chalfant, Bill Condon, Richard Easton, Guild’s fan” before he’d become Lynn’s “colleague and Elizabeth McCann, and Lead Tribute GIELGUD CENTENARY friend,” assured her that he’d “polka with her in April of 2004. anywhere, anytime.” In another SIR DEREK

JACOBI said “I have such very fond and vivid N MONDAY NIGHT, May 19, during a ICHARD EASTON, who had earned a 2001 memories of our time together as Juveniles in O touching ceremony that emerged as a R Tony Award as A. E. Housman in Tom the sixties at . Your warmth and salute to one of the most resonant family tradi- Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, and who’d your huge sense of fun, your no-nonsense ap- tions in the modern theatre, LYNN REDGRAVE been well acquainted with the actor whose proach to the often arduous work, your gener- accepted the 2003 Golden Quill. “character” the Golden Quill perpetuates osity to the other actors, and, above all, your (Sonnet 85), regaled the audience with some This year’s festivities took place at the historic spontaneity and humanity were, even then, an choice Gielgud anecdotes. He was followed by , a Gramercy Park jewel obvious and glowing recipe for a glittering director-screenwriter BILL CONDON, who’d won that was the original home for a SHAKESPEARE future. You never let your undoubted intellec- an Oscar for Gods and Monsters. Mr. Condon ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA that bore such immor- tual curiosity blunt the edges of your great spoke about the lessons he’d learned from see- tals as JOHN BARRYMORE and JULIA MARLOWE on emotional instincts. You made such unexpected ing how Ms. Redgrave approached her role as its masthead in the early 1920s. At present the choices – the sign of fine acting – and your servant to the filmmaker who was the movie’s NAC is hosting Food for Thought, a luncheon talents are the more potent for being under- flamboyant protagonist. Legendary Broadway forum in which distinguished performers read stated.” In a third message, ZOE CALDWELL con- producer ELIZABETH IRELAND MCCANN, who has playscripts, and SPEAKING OF SHAKESPEARE, a fided that she’d known Lynn “since she was in enriched our lives with hits like Amadeus, Co- Guild series that permits attendees to converse school uniform” and had “watched her like a penhagen, The Goat, and Home, and who now with such engaging personalities as F. hawk. The miracle is that each time I saw her, delivers the to us on MURRAY ABRAHAM, SIMON RUSSELL both in the theatre and in life, she got better, TV, came to the podium with a BEALE, HENRY GOODMAN, MARGOT simpler, more true. She now is at the pinnacle yellowed clipping about her first HARLEY, JEFFREY HOROWITZ, BILL IRWIN, of her ability. And like no other actress around, production, one in which Ms. JOHN MILLER, ROGER REES, and DAVID without any conceit or tricks she lets you in on Redgrave had enjoyed her New SCHRAMM. the humanity of the character she is playing.” York debut. She said she had con- In a fourth missive, Sir IAN MCKELLEN asked S HE WELCOMED 210 guests to the sidered giving it to her friend but Lynn “Does anyone know a more beautiful Club he’s led to unprecedented A finally realized she couldn’t part smile than yours? And you have the sense of outreach, president O. ALDON JAMES with it. In a swift transition from humour and wit to go with it. Of course that’s began with a letter from DANA GIOIA, the honoree’s earliest Manhattan only half your story. was funny, chairman of the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE triumph to her most recent, KATHLEEN but she broke the audience’s hearts. In Gods ARTS. After conveying his esteem for this year’s CHALFANT, representing the full cast of Talking and Monsters, James Whale’s housekeeper laureate, Mr. Gioia cited a line from Henry VIII Heads, focused on Hanna was funny, but how she touched us as – “The force of his own merit makes his way” – how much they she kissed his corpse goodbye. I’m sure that and applied it to the drama’s author. “It is the had all relished a ALAN BENNETT, the master of the bitter and the merit of his work – the deep richness and emo- chance to share sweet, is currently in your debt.” As if on cue, tional complexity of it – that draws our finest the stage with so an epistle from Mr. Bennett now manifested actors and actresses to his plays.” Mr. Gioia dedicated a talent itself with a timely return to origins. “That the went on to say that “as the National Endow- as Lynn. award is named after John Gielgud,” the writer ment for the Arts undertakes Shakespeare in said, is a particular “pleasure, as he starred in American Communities, the largest profes- S. REDGRAVE was now treated to a toast my first play, 40 Years On, itself nearly 40 sional tour” of the repertory “in our nation’s from her brother CORIN, who said that M years ago now. That show never made it to history, we do so with gratitude for The Shake- he found it very difficult to account for her New York, but has amply made speare Guild and its commitment to keeping” special gifts, which seemed so different from up for it.” the poet and his masterworks “alive and well those of SIR , for generations to come.” their late father, and of RACHEL N HER ACCEPTANCE remarks KEMPSON, their frail 92-year-old Next to speak was MARC LEVY, the NAC member Ms. Redgrave left no doubt mother. He spoke with eloquent I who has been primarily responsible for all the that these accolades meant a candor about the challenges all Guild’s offerings at the Club. Mr. Levy told Ms. great deal to her. Alluding to three offspring had encountered. Redgrave that the show of hers which had left her mother’s fading health and And he read a letter that had just the greatest impression on him was her own to the medical crises that Lynn arrived by fax from VANESSA Shakespeare For My Father, which had been and her brother had recently REDGRAVE, who had expected to be nominated for a Tony before it went to Lon- confronted, she closed with a present for the gathering but had don’s . In this solo poignant recitation of Pros- been called home to Connecticut piece, Lynn had enacted both the greatest pero’s famous assertion that when Ms. Kempson’s condition Nurse and the best Juliet he’d ever witnessed. “Our revels now are ended,” a suddenly worsened. statement that includes a magician’s elegiac Mr. Levy’s comments were echoed by BARBARA Like Corin, Vanessa praised her sister, com- reflection that “we are such stuff / As dreams HAMMERMAN, who’d served in the early ’90s as mended the fortitude that had been so crucial are made on; and our little life / Is rounded executive director of the GROVE SHAKESPEARE at key points in her career, and stressed how with a sleep.” FESTIVAL in California. After she brought greet- proud she was that Lynn was being lauded for ings on behalf of the Guild board of directors, Those who heard her were vividly reminded of her contributions to an artistic heritage that all Ms. Hammerman thanked MARGOT LEBOW of Sir Derek Jacobi’s earlier comment that Lynn the Redgraves had fervently cherished. WORLDTRAVELSERVICE and WENDY BUCK of Redgrave is, and will long remain, “a shining VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRWAYS, who’d supplied indis- Photographs by Neshan Naltchayan beacon” to a world of affectionate admirers.