Natasha Richardson critically hurt in Quebec ski accident
Tony-award-winning actress Natasha Richardson, who was taken to a Montreal hospital with a serious head injury following a ski fall yesterday, left the hospital at 12:30 this afternoon in an ambulance.
The actress has left the country, said Michelle Simard, a spokesperson for Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, where she was admitted yesterday.
Simard said she did not know where Richardson was headed.
A spokesperson at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport said she could not comment because Richardson left Canada aboard a private jet operated by a company that is independent from the airport authority.
Richardson was accompanied by her husband, actor Liam Neeson.
A Toronto Star reporter was the only media representative to watch as Richardson, lying heavily-wrapped in blankets in an intensive-care bed, tubes covering her face, was loaded into a yellow ambulance at the hospital.
Neeson was already crouched down inside the back of the ambulance watching as she was loaded. He looked extremely worried.
Handlers asked the reporter to leave.
A nurse who accompanied the family down from the fifth floor intensive care unit later refused to say where Richardson was headed, although it was later revealed she was being taken to the airport.
Richardson suffered the fall during a ski lesson at Mont Tremblant yesterday.
Richardson, the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and wife of Neeson, was in "perfect condition" after a tumble on the beginner hill during the lesson yesterday. But an hour after the fall, she complained of headaches and was taken to a local hospital with a head injury, a spokesperson for the resort confirmed today.
"Mrs. Richardson was on a private lesson yesterday and she fell while getting the lesson," said Catherine Lacasse, a spokesperson for Mont Tremblant ski resort.
"The ski instructor saw her fall and called patrol. Two ski patrollers came down and checked her vital signs. She was still in perfect condition. She was breathing and laughing. But we just wanted to make sure she was okay."
The fall, which occurred on the Nansen beginner trail around 3 p.m., did not appear to be serious, Lacasse said.
But the ski patrol took her down to the bottom of the slope and insisted she see a doctor, Lacasse said.
Lacasse said Richardson refused and said she instead wanted to go back to her room at the resort's Hotel Quintessence, where it is believed she had been staying since Sunday.
As a precaution, Lacasse said, the ski instructor as well as the ski patrol accompanied Richardson to her room. They again recommended she see a doctor, and the ski instructor stayed with her at her hotel.
Lacasse said that approximately an hour after the incident, Richardson said she was not feeling well. "She had a headache and then accepted to go to the hospital and an ambulance came."
Lacasse said Richardson was not wearing a helmet and did not collide with anything when she fell.
The actress was initially taken to Centre Hospitalier Laurentien, near the ski lodge at Mont Tremblant, which is about 130 kilometres northwest of Montreal, but was transported to Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal at around 5 p.m.
Lacasse said she was waiting to hear from the hospital for an update on Richardson's condition. "That's the missing information," she said.
Neeson had been in Toronto on the set of his new movie Chloe, but left for Montreal when he learned of the accident.
A family member said she learned of the accident early this morning.
"We know that she has had an accident but we really do not know any more details," said Kika Markham, who is married to Richardson's uncle, Corin Redgrave. "We are very concerned."
Redgrave told London's Evening Standard: "I have heard this morning from a family representative about Natasha's accident and am very saddened."
This morning, Mont Tremblant's municipal police told the Star they were not called to the accident scene and did not have any information on Richardson's status. They have since visited the resort to see if they could help, Lacasse said.
Richardson, an acclaimed actress of both screen and stage, was born May 11, 1963 in London to actress Vanessa Redgrave and Oscar-winning British director Tony Richardson, who died in 1991.
Richardson comes from a long line of thespians: her grandfather Michael Redgrave, grandmother Rachel Kempson, uncle Corin Redgrave, aunt Lynn Redgrave and cousin Jemma Redgrave are all actors.
Her sister, Joely, is also an actress on the television series Nip/Tuck, while her half-brother Carlo (from her mother's relationship with Franco Nero) is a writer and director.
"I know the pressures of being the daughter of a great actress. But it's inspiring. You learn so much that other people don't get to learn until later on," she has said.
Film credits include The Parent Trap, Patty Hearst, The Handmaid's Tale, Nell, Widow's Peak, Maid in Manhattan, Asylum and The White Countess, in which she starred with her mother and aunt, Lynn Redgrave.
But many believe her best performances have come on the stage with acclaimed performances in The Seagull (with her mother), Hamlet, Cabaret (for which she won a 1998 Tony award) and A Streetcar Named Desire.
She also co-starred with her acclaimed mother in the 2007 film Evening, the story of the unconditional love that binds a mother and her two daughters.
"Having the chance to work with your mother, who is an extraordinary actress, is a dream come true," she said.
Richardson and Redgrave are reportedly slated to star in a 2010 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.
Richardson set her ambitions on performing as young as four, when her father directed her mother in The Charge of the Light Brigade.
She likes to say she wasn't that different as a kid, that like any other young girl growing up she was excited by hearing that it was Jessica Lange or Jack Nicholson on the phone.
"It is an advantage. I'm very lucky because I learned lots of things by osmosis, by just being around my parents, (things) other people would have to start learning from scratch."
Without revealing her acting pedigree, she entered London's Central School of Speech and Drama at 17, which initially led to a career in regional theatre, then later to film and television roles.
At 22, she co-starred with her mother in the West End production of Chekhov's The Seagull, for which she won the London Drama Critics' Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
It was at this time she fell in love with Robert Fox, the play's producer, and they married in 1990. That year she won a London Theatre Critics' Award for her work in Anna Christie.
When a Broadway production was planned, Natasha suggested Neeson, whom she had never met, to be her co-star. It was not only clear to her but to the audience too, that the couple shared a fiery chemistry on stage.
Natasha once said: "It was a very painful time realizing I was in an unhappy marriage but I didn't ever believe I would be with Liam. That wasn't an option for us then."
In 1992, she divorced Fox and moved to New York to make a fresh start. Liam joined her and three weeks after they finished filming Nell, they married. She later admitted she was hesitant about entering a relationship with the 6-foot-4 boxer-turned-actor because they were so "chalk and cheese."
She said: "Liam is a great help to me and I help him because we understand and support one another. You have to ride the waves."
Richardson has been married to Oscar-nominated Schindler's List star Neeson since 1994. Their wedding guest list included Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw; Mia Farrow; Emma Thompson; and director Ron Shelton.
The couple have two sons, Michael and Daniel, and live in upstate New York. Natasha and Liam made a rule that they never leave their boys for more than two weeks without one of them being there. Natasha has a reputation for throwing lavish dinner parties at her family home and regular guests include Ralph Fiennes and Meryl Streep.
With files from Canadian Press and Reuters
