Corin Redgrave: a life in pictures

1959: Corin Redgrave applies his makeup backstage at the Lyric theatre, where he appeared as Duke Ferdinand in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Images Photograph: Fox Photos/guardian.co.uk 1960: The Redgraves, first family of British theatre, enjoy an evening at their London home. Corin and his father Michael play the piano while Lynn and Vanessa join their mother Rachel Kempson in song Photograph: Gerti Deutsch/Getty Images Photograph: Gerti Deutsch/guardian.co.uk 1962: A dress rehearsal for the English Stage Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the Royal Court theatre in London. From left to right: Redgrave as Lysander, Rita Tushingham as Hermia and Lynn Redgrave as Helena Photograph: John Franks/Getty Images Photograph: John Franks/guardian.co.uk 1968: Redgrave sits with his co-stars during the filming of Richard Attenborough's first world war satire Oh! What a Lovely War at the Palace Pier in Brighton Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Images Photograph: Fox Photos/guardian.co.uk 1978: Portrait of a political radical ... Redgrave in Brixton during the Lambeth byelection campaign. He was standing as a candidate for the Workers Revolutionary Party Photograph: Tony Bogues/Getty Images Photograph: Tony Bogues/guardian.co.uk 1999: Corin and sister Vanessa Redgrave performing in Song at Twilight in London. The 90s were a prolific period after a spell when his political activism had made many people in film and theatre unwilling to work with him Photograph: Haydn West/Rex Features Photograph: Haydn West/guardian.co.uk Redgrave remained politically active, however. Here he is in conversation with former Guantánamo detainees Martin Mubanga and Moazzam Begg, after delivering a petition to the Home Office, London, in 2005. Begg and Mubanga handed over a 3,500-signature petition demanding the release of five UK residents still being held in Cuba Photograph: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images Photograph: Bruno Vincent/guardian.co.uk 2004: Redgrave as the critic Kenneth Tynan in the Royal Shakespeare Company's one-man show, Tynan Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Features Photograph: Alastair Muir/guardian.co.uk 2004: Redgrave and Terry Waite in front of Westminster, addressing the media in their capacity as members of the Guantánamo Human Rights Commission Delegation Photograph: Matthew Fearn/PA Photograph: Matthew Fearn/guardian.co.uk 2005: Redgrave in the title role of the RSC's King Lear, a performance Michael Billington described as 'overwhelming' Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Features Photograph: Alastair Muir/guardian.co.uk 2005: Redgrave at home, the year he suffered a heart attack while making a speech in support of Travellers' rights in Basildon, Essex Photograph: Philip Hollis/Rex Features Photograph: Philip Hollis/guardian.co.uk 2009: Reading the letters of the blacklisted Hollywood communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the play Trumbo. The play opened on the night news broke of his niece Natasha Richardson's death Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Features Photograph: Alastair Muir/guardian.co.uk