The Late Glenda Jackson, in Glorious Black and White

Glenda Jackson—the Oscar-, Emmy-, and Tony-winning actress and former member of Britain’s Parliament—died at her home in London on Thursday, according to her agent, Lionel Larner. The acting titan was 87.

Famed for her richly varied career on stage and in film, including turns in comedies like 1973’s A Touch of Class, with George Segal, and 1980’s Hopscotch, with Walter Matthau, as well as romantic and historical dramas such as Women in Love (1970), Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), and the BBC serial Elizabeth R (1971), Jackson was considered one of England’s greatest living actresses when she pivoted to politics in the early 1990s, serving as the Labour Party MP for Hampstead and Highgate, as junior transport minister under Tony Blair, and even making a bid for mayor of London.

After returning to acting in 2015, Jackson starred in a production of King Lear at the Old Vic the following year, earning an Evening Standard Theatre Award and an Olivier nomination. (She would revisit the piece on Broadway in 2019, appearing opposite Ruth Wilson in a version directed by Sam Gold.) Then, in 2018, Jackson won a Tony for her towering performance in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, co-starring Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill. A celebrated lead role in the television drama Elizabeth Is Missing followed in 2019.

Jackson’s final projects were the 2021 film Mothering Sunday, with Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Olivia Colman, and Colin Firth, and the still-to-be-released The Great Escaper, in which she reunited with Michael Caine, her costar in 1975’s The Romantic Englishwoman.

Here, in her honor, we take a fond look back at Jackson’s early years in the spotlight—her formidable talents intensely vibrant, even in black and white.