\nThe daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson is said to be close to death after a seemingly innocuous fall on a beginners’ ski slope.
\nMiss Redgrave arrived with her head bowed and covered by a scarf, daughter Joely Richardson and granddaughter Daisy followed, actress aunt Lynn Redgrave, and soon after the injured actress’s sons Michael and Daniel.
\nThe mother-of-two is being cared for at Lenox Hill Hospital in her adopted city where she lives with actor husband Liam Neeson.
\nThe 45-year-old actress developed life-threatening injuries after apparently hitting her head during a ski lesson on holiday in Canada.
\nReliable sources close to her family have told the Daily Mail that she is ‘brain dead’.
\n‘It’s so sad. Vanessa, her sister Lynn, everybody is gathering in New York to say goodbye,’ the close friend of the family told the Daily Mail last night , before adding: ‘No one can believe what has happened, that this once vibrant woman, full of love, of life, is lying there brain dead.’
\nAnd it seemed as if she had become the latest victim of the ‘curse’ said to beset the theatrical dynasty to which she belongs.
\nMiss Richardson, who is married to actor Liam Neeson, had been taking a private ski lesson at the resort of Mont Tremblant, when she fell on a green slope, suitable for beginners.
\nShe was at the bottom of the run in an area known as The Flats during the afternoon lesson, when she tumbled down the hill.
\nInitially Miss Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet, appeared unhurt.
\nShe got up laughing and refused to see a doctor, witnesses said, even signing a medical form saying she did not need help.
\nBut an hour after returning to her hotel room, the Tony award-winning actress began to experience severe headaches and was taken to hospital.
\nShe received emergency treatment at the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien, nearby, and was then transferred to Montreal’s Sacre Coeur Hospital.
\nMiss Richardson’s mother, the 72-year-old Oscar-winning actress, was already in Manhattan, comforting the couple’s sons, Michael, 13, and Daniel Jack, 12, who had been in Canada on the holiday, but were then flown home.
\nA friend said: ‘Vanessa’s distraught as you would imagine but she’s being strong for the boys.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"