geoff: British actor Glenda
Jackson has died at the age of
87.
The two-time oscar-winner had a
23 your second act as a member
of British parliament.
She returned to the stage in
2018 winning a Tony for her role
in tall women.
Our reporter sat down with
Jackson to talk to her about
both of her remarkable careers.
As we look at her passing here
is a look at that conversation.
>> Spits fire and outrage.
Reporter: It was quite a return.
After 23 years away from the
theater, Jackson took to the
stage in 2016 in Shakespeare's
king Lear playing king Lear.
>> That is one of the endearing
things about the theater.
I can put it into a kind of
immediate contact.
You work with people and may not
see them for decades.
Bump into them in the street and
there is no time gap.
Reporter: Now 82 Jackson as back
on Broadway for the first time
since 1998 starring in three
tall women.
It is a play about memory and
aging that appealed to Jackson
partly because of its strong
female roles, something she says
is a rarity.
We spoke recently in times
square.
>> It has been my experience
since I first walked onto the
stage and got paid for it, that
contemporary dramatists find
women boring.
We are hardly ever the kind of
dramatic engine of what they are
writing.
Reporter: Why do you think that
has been the case?
>> You are a man, you tell me?
They don't seem to think that
being a woman is either
interesting or dramatic or
challenging or dangerous or any
of the things that any woman in
the world knows.
Reporter: Has this been a
problem for you in your career,
finding roles?
>> Of course it is a problem, a
problem that has not seemed to
change.
It is amusing to me.
It has not shifted.
Reporter: It is hard to imagine
anyone finding Jackson boring.
Beginning in the 19 60's she was
a prominent presence on stage
and screen on both sides of the
atlantic.
>> I could never love you.
Reporter: She reached wide frame
-- wide fame in woman in love.
She won her first academy award
as best actress.
Her roles playing strong and
dynamic women continue to win
her fame and awards.
>> I am an absolute princess.
Reporter: This aired on
masterpiece theatre.
She won a second Oscar for the
1973 film, a touch of class.
In 1980 eight, Jackson, a
longtime critic of Margaret
thatcher left acting for what
would become a decades long
clinical career as a labour
party member of the British
parliament.
>> By far the most dramatic and
heinous demonstration of
thatcherism was when every shot
doorway every night became the
bedroom, the living room, the
bathroom 4 --.
Reporter: When you left acting
was it because you had done
enough?
>> Good heavens, no, my country
was being destroyed.
Anything I could do that was
legal to get Margaret thatcher
and her government out I was
prepared to have a go out.
Because, everything I have been
taught as vices, she said was
virtues.
Reporter: Did you come to feel
that you accomplished something
meaningful as a politician?
>> Not as an individual.
The idea that you have
individual power in that sense
is actually not true.
You have clear responsibilities
towards your own constituents
and constituency and that to me
was the most interesting part of
it.
But yes, we did make changes but
then along came the Iraq war.
Reporter: One issue she
champion, women's rights in the
home and workplace.
I asked if she was surprised
about the force of the #metoo
movement now.
>> What surprises me is that
people are surprised.
And my country to women die
every week at the hands of their
partner not infrequently mail.
Every week.
That is not on the front pages
of our newspapers every week.
So this sudden almost cataclysm
of surprise, shock, horror, how
could this happen -- I don't buy
it.
I mean, people are deluding
themselves.
We failed to acknowledge it.
We failed to work to eradicate
it.
It takes more than just being
shocked to eradicate it.
Reporter: For you personally do
you have any regrets about
having taken the time away from
acting to be a politician?
>> Oh no, it is an inordinate
privilege to be a member of
parliament.
People give you their trust.
And they also give you what I
regard as their most valuable
right in the sense, their votes.
And that is a very humbling and
privileged experience to have.
Reporter: Now that you are back,
do you plan to continue acting?
>> I would hope to.
Yes, I mean, you know, yes, it
is one of the things that has
been and is at the moment very
essential in my life.
If the work is not exciting and
daunting as I have been
privileged to experience over
the last couple of years.
Reporter: For the pbs newshour,
I'm Jeffrey brown on Broadway in
New York.
♪♪