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Natasha Richardson in memorial
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Natasha Richardson life

After a day of conflicting rumors, rampant web speculation, and official silence, the news came that Richardson died Wednesday after reportedly being removed from life support at New York's Lenox Hill hospital. The actress, 45, fell on the bunny slope at a Montreal resort where she was skiing with her sons, complained of a headache shortly thereafter, and rapidly declined, being flown to Manhattan late on Tuesday. Her husband, actor Liam Neeson, and mother, acting legend Vanessa Redgrave, were at Richardson's side in her final moments. Random death is always ugly, and Richardson was an actress of unnatural skill and grace. This feels cruel.

She came from a royal player's lineage and took that as a burden and a badge of pride. Her grandfather, Michael Redgrave, was knighted for his talent; her mother turned down a British damehood in 1999. Her aunt, Lynn Redgrave, has been up for an Oscar or two. Her father, Tony Richardson, was one of the leading directorial lights of British cinema.

How do you live up to such a legacy? By honoring it and not letting it rule your life. Richardson was more a star of theater than of movies, making her initial Broadway splash in 1993 in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie," and never moving too far from the New York stage orbit thereafter. Film was a medium she passed easily through without worrying much about becoming a star. Richardson made a splash as Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's "Gothic" in 1986, then had her first title role in 1988's "Patty Hearst," playing the role (correctly) as a bland upper-middle-class cipher rather than as a diva star-turn. After "The Handmaid's Tale" (1990), in which she again played a numbed victim controlled by power-hungry forces, Richardson backed off and contented herself with supporting roles in film. Most people under 30 probably only know her from "The Parent Trap," in which she played a young Lindsay Lohan's mother.

Yet Richardson also won a Tony for reinventing Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" on Broadway in 1998, in a production co-directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall. She returned to the Roundabout Theatre in 2005 to play Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" opposite John C. Reilly. These are the Richardson performances that may matter most, and they're unseen by all except those who were there. Her other legacy is the millions of dollars she raised for AmfAR in the fight against AIDS, partly in memory of her father, who died of the disease in 1991.

Is there a definitive Natasha Richardson performance? Probably not, although I'd like to have seen her Zelda Fitzgerald in the 1993 TV movie "Zelda." Now, there was a woman who knew how to act out. Richardson, by contrast, was content to simply act. For audiences, the hardest part of her untimely death is all the roles we'll now miss, onstage or on the screen. She possessed the talent, fire, and balls to take on and redefine iconic stage roles like Anna, Sally, and Blanche, yet she had no interest in stardom. (Perhaps having Vanessa Redgrave as a mum clears that out of your system.) That's rare and admirable, and I wish she'd brought that selflessness to the screen more. Admit it: Richardson's Grande Dame years would have been amazing.