VANESSA REDGRAVE - REDGRAVE'S SECRET DATING PAST

REDGRAVE'S SECRET DATING PAST

VANESSA REDGRAVE's family forced her to call off her engagement to a man in the 1960s - for fear it would damage her Hollywood career.
The veteran actress began dating Gavin Welby when she first started out in the Royal Shakespeare Company aged 23 and told her father, Sir Michael Redgrave, she planned to marry her sweetheart.
But Sir Michael, along with the star's mother Rachel Kempson, feared she would become a housewife and sacrifice her movie career if she wed, according to previously unseen letters in the archives of the famous acting dynasty.
Kempson wrote to her husband, “Vanessa is completely infatuated... I only pray we can prevent marriage.”
Her parents' disapproval worked - the actress eventually ended the relationship.
She told her father, “I have decided not to marry Gavin because, although I do love him, for various reasons I know it wouldn’t work... I had a talk with Mum this evening and realised that it is the only thing to do.”
Redgrave went on to marry film director Tony Richardson in 1962 before they divorced five years later. She wed Italian actor married Franco Nero in 2006.