The full story of Glenda Jackson’s astonishing journey from Boots shop assistant to double-Oscar-winning actress with a triumphant stage career, and her re-invention of herself as a politician.

In 1964 she took her place in the forefront of British stage actresses playing the insane, sexually tormented Charlotte Corday in Peter Brook’s The Marat/Sade. She went on to portray disturbed and sexually aggressive women for Ken Russell, and gained a reputation for taking her clothes off at the slightest provocation – an image deeply at odds with her puritanical private life.

With Oscars for Women in Love and A Touch of Class, her biggest box-office hit, Glenda Jackson established herself as the darling of the film industry – she is reputedly one of Britain’s top 200 richest women. Subsequently she worked in films of intermittent quality, and became increasingly difficult to work with.

By the 1980s she worked almost exclusively on stage, reinforcing her reputation as a supremely intelligent and serious actress. But she became increasingly unhappy with the ephemeral nature of the theatre and became more and more involved in left-wing politics, appearing for Neil Kinnock in the 1987 campaign.

The marriage of Glenda Jackson and Hampstead and Highgate Labour Party may seem to be made in heaven, but it took precision engineering to convince many that she was more than a celebrity actress. She scraped through, and has now risen to become Junior Minister for Transport under Tony Blair.

As actress or MP, Glenda Jackson continues to intrigue the public, and in her appearances there shines through a contradictory, sultry and evasive woman.