BWW Flashback: The Political Career of KING LEAR's Glenda Jackson

Glenda Jackson has two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and took home last year's Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play. The stage and screen favorite is now taking on the title role in William Shakespeare's King Lear, opening on Broadway tonight at the Cort Theater, but did you know that she also had a career in politics?

Jackson announced that she was retiring from acting in 1992 in order to run for election to the House of Commons. She subsequently became a Labour Member of Parliament, later serving as a Junior Minister for transport, and running to be the Labour Party's nominee for Mayor of London.

Take a look back at her political career through the clips below.

The video shows Jackson being interviewed about Labour Party's success in the 1997 election and her own election to the House of Commons.

In the following this video, Jackson, a junior minister for transport, visits an International Motorcycle Show held in Manchester and discusses the need for consideration of motorcyclists in the U.K.'s urban planning efforts.

Following the death of Margaret Thatcher, Jackson spoke out strongly against the former Prime Minister, blaming her for an increase in unemployment and homelessness. This was a controversial stance, as can be seen by the reactions of other members of parliament in this video.

In June 2014, shortly before leaving politics to return to acting, Jackson ripped into Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith, calling his department incompetent and accusing him of destroying the welfare state.

This season's new Broadway production of William Shakespeare's King Lear, starring two-time Academy Award winner, two-time Emmy Award winner, and 2018 Tony Award winner Glenda Jackson and directed by Tony Award winner Sam Gold, will open tomorrow, April 4, 2019 at the Cort Theatre. The production will play a strictly limited engagement through Sunday, July 7, 2019.