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Very grim report about Natasha Richardson, critically injured after a skiing accident.

Richardson was on a beginner's slope and reportedly not wearing a helmet when she fell - although headgear is not required.

"She did not show any visible sign of injury but the ski patrol followed strict procedures and brought her back to the bottom of the slope and insisted she should see a doctor," said a statement from the resort, which is almost 80 miles northwest of Montreal.

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Apparently there was no collision as she fell. I’m sure if there had been they would have made her go to the doctor forthwith even if she said she felt fine. We don't have all the details, but sometimes accidents just happen.

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dirac, true. My office has done several series on concussions, including one recently. There are many examples in those stories where people had what appeared to be mild head injuries, the type one would shrug off, but then complications set in. If it makes people pause and consider checking it out, I don't think that's wrong.

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I've seen her many times on stage- most recently at a benefit for the Roundabout Theater in Sondheim's "A Little Night Music". Her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, was also in the performance. She was a wonderful stage actress. Perhaps it's time to require that skiing aficianados wear protective head gear.

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I've seen her many times on stage- most recently at a benefit for the Roundabout Theater in Sondheim's "A Little Night Music". Her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, was also in the performance. She was a wonderful stage actress. Perhaps it's time to require that skiing aficianados wear protective head gear.

I'm sure they'll be wearing helmets on the beginners' slope henceforward.

I never had the chance to see her on stage, unfortunately. She's a very talented film actress although after a promising start her career didn't really take off as it might have.

The Post article seemed reasonably sourced and as carbro notes the AP article doesn’t contradict it. I expect confirmation from the family will appear in due course although I hope I’m wrong.

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I'm sure they'll be wearing helmets on the beginners' slope henceforward.
The beginners' slopes are generally not where the most traumatic injuries occur. Skiers at that level go very slowly, not much velocity, and the falls tend to be gentle and to the seat. Such injuries that do occur are generally twists and sprains of the extremities. It's the expert skiiers -- and snowboarders -- who go fast and at the edge of control who are really at risk for traumatic injury.

Head injuries can occur anywhere, under the most innocuous of circumstances. I once turned around while walking along the street and, don't know how, hit my head on a lamppost hard enough to cause dizziness.

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The NY Post, quite reliable so far, reports that the family has taken Ms. Richardson off life support.

She was eventually taken to Montreal's Hopital du Sacre-Coeur, where the family was told Richardson had no hope of regaining any brain function, friends said.

Loved ones didn't want Richardson to die in a foreign hospital, so they whisked her back to New York yesterday where she was greeted by family from both sides of the Atlantic.
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CNN just reported that Natasha Richardson passed away earlier today as a result of her head injury. My prayers go out to her entire family. This is so tragic.

I'll never forget the first time I saw her in an episode of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" starring the great Jeremy Brett in 1985. Natasha Richardson must have been about only about 21 years old at the time and her performance was superb. I knew I was watching a great actress in the making. RIP Natasha.

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Thank you for the unhappy update, MakarovaFan. Obituary here.

In 1985, a week before he died, Sir Michael, enfeebled by Parkinson’s disease, went to see Ms. Richardson as Ophelia in a production of “Hamlet.” Turning to his daughter Vanessa, Ms. Richardson’s mother, he uttered a brief review. “She’s a true actress,” he said.

I first saw her in "Patty Hearst" and "Fat Man and Little Boy" - she made a striking impression in both. As the obit notes, she made her film debut at age four in "The Charge of the Light Brigade." I remember her in it - there's a charmingly gratuitous shot of a little blond girl, obviously worked in by a doting papa. Rest in peace.

Some of you New Yorkers must have seen her on the stage. Please share any recollections.

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I waited over four hours for standby tickets to see Ms. Richardson in the revival of "Cabaret" when it was still at the tiny Henry Miller theatre. Her luminous performance and graciousness to the theatre students to the theatre students who were waiting for her made it a very worthwhile expedition.

My heart goes out to the family.

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I am so very very saddened by this. I know firsthand what her family must be going through having had many sudden deaths in my own family over the last few years. Both my heart and mind goes out to them, and all those touched by her personally and professionally.

(A small aside:) In one of the online articles I read today, the author said "the show-biz wand tapped her" after she saw her mother in the film Camelot. The article goes on to quote Ms. Richardson as saying, "I still look at that movie and can't believe it. It still makes me cry, the beauty of it." This had much resonance with me, because of all the movies I saw as a small child, that was the one that made the deepest impression, and for a similar reason: I thought it was the most beautiful and in some ways profound film I had seen. I'm not the biggest fan of musicals, but that one stuck. And it was why I started paying attention to the Redgrave dynasty.

I will always respect and regard them all for their talent and devotion to enhancing the quality of life of many less fortunate.

My deepest sympathy to them all.

PS. Why has no one mentioned her half-brother Carlo? (And cousin Gemma who is/was also an actress?)

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I add my condolences to her family. This hits hard in that it is so sudden and doesn't seem to make sense.

I feel for her young children who had to lose their mother so tragically and with no preparation. As a mother who had to anguish, years ago, over what it would be like for my children to be motherless (because of what I have, I was told to prepare for my demise), my heart cries for them.

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Like many of you, I've been sad about this all day. Like Makarova Fan, I remember her debut on "Sherlock Holmes" -- she was one of the most exciting contemporary actresses, I think.

I feel the same way. Just the suddenness and strangeness of what happened - it's really stuck in my brain. So sad. I remember during a "British phase" I was in, reading about her staring in High Society in London. She looked so beautiful and graceful in the photos I saw in Tattler, that I really longed to see the show. I'm sorry I didn't see her on the stage here in NY but I remember her as far back as The Comfort of Strangers - a very odd film. I saw it for Rupert Everett, but she was the best thing in it. The camera just loved her face and she had, as I put it earlier in the thread, that amazing Redgrave voice.

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So sad. I remember during a "British phase" I was in, reading about her staring in High Society in London. She looked so beautiful and graceful in the photos I saw in Tattler, that I really longed to see the show.

Dale, funny...well no I guess it's not really funny...that you mentioned High Society. Just by coincidence I happened to be in London during that run and saw Richardson in it. She was still very young but had a wonderful stage presence.

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I have the same disbelief that I felt when Princess Diana died -- the inexplicability of such a vital, beautiful, "magical" person simply perishing.

I enjoyed Richardson's world-worn Sally Bowes, but mostly I remember with pleasure an interview she gave Charlie Rose. He asked some silly, Rosian question about her fitness routine and gym attendance. She smiled, perhaps wanting to pursue other topics, and said, "You know, Charlie. We go to the same gym!"

The family lives in the building across the street from me. When I was last outside, there were a few photographers sitting in parked cars, a tripod with a video cam standing at the ready. It's just this side of discreet, but then again, no relatives were passing in or out at the time.

My sympathies go to them, the family. As we go through life, we learn how the world can change in an instant, but those boys seem too young to have to absorb that cruel lesson.

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An appreciation by Michael Phillips in The Chicago Tribune.

.......At her best, when her uneven film career allowed it—the greatest triumphs came on the London and New York stage—her theatrical chops brought something extra to the role at hand, something that said: This is play-acting. But I'm playing it for real.

Often stuck in suffocating roles onscreen, she breathed more easily in the theater. Co-starring with her future husband Liam Neeson in a 1993 Broadway revival of O'Neill's "Anna Christie," Richardson conquered a hugely difficult role, full of stereotyped Minnesota dialect and whore-with-gold-heart pitfalls. I still remember the big, whiskey-soaked rasp of a voice she brought to that portrayal. The voice was the key—the way into a nearly unplayable cliche's beating heart.

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An interview with Liam Neeson, where he speaks about the death of Richardson. He notes that several of her organs were donated.

Anderson Cooper: But at that point you didn't think that there was any hope?

Liam Neeson: She and I had made a pact. If any of us got into a vegetative state that we'd pull the plug. You know? So when I saw her and saw all these tubes and stuff, that was my immediate thought. Was, "OK, these tubes have to go. She's gone." But donated three of her organs, so she's keeping three people alive at the moment. Yeah. Her heart, her kidneys and her liver.

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