Lionel Larner said Jackson “died peacefully at her home in Blackheath London this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side”.
“She recently completed filming ‘The Great Escaper’ in which she co-starred with Michael Caine,” he added.
Jackson won the Best Actress Oscar in 1970 for her performance in Ken Russell’s “Women in Love”, and again in 1973 for her role in “A Touch of Class”, a romantic comedy directed by Melvin Frank.
She was elected as a Labour MP for her local London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate in 1992, and served as a transport minister in Tony Blair’s government between 1997 and 1999.
Tulip Siddiq, the current Labour serving Jackson’s former constituency, called her a “formidable politician” and a “very supportive mentor”.
“Devastated to hear that my predecessor Glenda Jackson has died,” she tweeted.
‘An actor’s life is not interesting’
One of four daughters of a bricklayer and a cleaning lady in northwest England, Jackson never forgot her roots even as she made her name as one of the greatest women actors of her generation.
Raw-boned, pallid and angular, with striking, sharp eyes, she had starred on stage, television and film before quitting to take up politics, declaring: “An actor’s life is not interesting.”
Jackson also won two Emmy awards for her portrayal of England’s Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC’s 1971 television series “Elizabeth R”.
Growing up in Birkenhead, Cheshire, Jackson left school at the age of 15 and found work in a shop before winning a place at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in London.
Her big chance came in 1964 when avant-garde director Peter Brook chose her to play Charlotte Corday in his stage production of “”Marat/Sade”, set in a lunatic asylum.
When she repeated her performance on Broadway, American critics voted her “the most promising newcomer of the 1965-66 season”. She went on to solidify her reputation by playing Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s ““Hamlet” and Masha in Anton Chekhov’s ““Three Sisters”.
Her performances began to attract the attention of film directors. As well as “Women in Love” and “A Touch of Class”, other notable film roles included John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” with Peter Finch.
She also portrayed Elizabeth for a second time in “Mary, Queen of Scots” opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the title role.
‘Dreadful, dreadful’
After more than three decades on stage and film, Jackson quit acting and took her no-nonsense, straight-talking style into politics.
She had been angered by the damage she believed was inflicted on the working classes by Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Conservative prime minister from 1979 until 1990.
In 1992, at the age of 55, Jackson won a seat in parliament representing Labour in a constituency in north London.
“We must work for the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the frail, the sick,” she told supporters.
In parliament, Jackson was vociferous in her condemnation of the Conservative Party, which she accused of instilling a “dreadful, dreadful moral malaise” in Britain.
When Labour won power in May 1997 and Jackson retained her seat, then prime minister Tony Blair appointed her as a junior minister responsible for transport.
She held the position for two years before resigning to make an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to be nominated as Labour’s candidate for London mayor.
Though she remained in parliament, securing re-election in 2001, 2005 and 2010 and fighting for equality, she became increasingly out of step with Blair’s more centrist approach and decided in 2011 not to contest the next election.
“I will be almost 80, and by then it will be time for someone else to have a turn,” she said.
She returned to acting in 2015 and the following year won critical acclaim for playing King Lear on stage. In 2018, she played 92-year-old “A” in Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women” on Broadway, a performance that won her a Tony Award.
In 2019, she played an elderly grandmother struggling with dementia in “Elizabeth Is Missing”, a television series, and was rewarded with a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) TV Award for Best Actress.
Jackson was married from 1958 to 1976 to stage director Roy Hodges. She is survived by their son, Daniel Hodges, who was born in 1969.