Glenda Jackson obituary: An actress unafraid to speak her mind

“My fear,” she said, “was that I would not have the physical or vocal strength” to play one of Shakespeare’s most challenging parts.

But the Daily Telegraph described her performance as “one of those 11th-hour feats of human endeavour that will surely be talked about for years to come”.

Two years later, she won a Tony Award on Broadway in a revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women.

Chain-smoking and often barbed, she tolerated no fools. “No-one does scorn like Jackson,” said one shell-shocked interviewer.

But the writer Marilyn Stasio best summed up the experience of watching her act: “It is like looking straight into the sun,” she wrote in Variety magazine.

“Her expressive face registers her thoughts while guarding her feelings. But it’s the voice that really thrills.

“Deeply pitched and clarion clear, it’s the commanding voice of stern authority. Don’t mess with this household god or she’ll turn you to stone.”

Jackson was winning accolades for her acting work as recently as 2020, when she won a Bafta TV Award for best leading actress for her performance in Elizabeth is Missing, about a woman suffering from dementia.

Shortly before her death, Jackson completed filming The Great Escaper, in which she co-starred with Michael Caine.