Natasha Richardson is reportedly in critical condition after being hospitalized after a skiing accident. The 45-year-old actress, part of a distinguished and sprawling theatrical dynasty that includes her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, as well as her sister Joely Richardson, aunt Lynn Redgrave, and her grandfather, the legendary Michael Redgrave, was rushed to Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal with what reports have described as a serious injury to the brain. Redgrave's husband, Liam Neeson, who was in Toronto, working on Atom Egoyan's Chloe, has left the set of that film to be at her side. A rep for that film issued a statement saying that "We do not have any details at this time but we hope for the best and our thoughts and prayers are with Natasha and Liam and their family."

The wildly gifted Richardson made her film debut in 1986, playing Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic; she later appeared in A Month in the Country(1987), Patty Hearst(1988), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Widows' Peak (1994), and Nell (1994), where she co-starred with Neeson. (They had appeared together the year before, to famously sizzling effect, in a Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Although Richardson has continued to make movies, appearing with her mother in 2007's Evening, in the last several years her film career seemed to be taking second, or maybe third place, to her family (she and Neeson have two sons) and her stage career. Richardson won a Tony Award in 1999 for her performance in Sam Mendes's revival of Cabaret.