Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen.
The title song, performed by Australian band The Seekers, became a hit single and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song (music by Tom Springfield, lyrics by Jim Dale). Redgrave was also Oscar-nominated for her titular performance as Best Actress, as were Mason for Best Supporting Actor and Kenneth Higgins' cinematography. The film was entered into the 16th Berlin International Film Festival.

The film was the basis for an unsuccessful musical stage adaptation called simply Georgy.

"Georgy Girl" cemented Ms. Redgrave's place in popular culture but had, in her own words, typecast her as "the happy lass with the broken heart." She played variations on that role for years to come, including the play "My Fat Friend," which reached Broadway in 1974. She spent most of the 1980s as the spokeswoman for Weight Watchers and wrote a well-received book about her eating binges, "This Is Living: How I Found Health and Happiness."

Ms. Redgrave was the youngest child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson and the sibling of actress Vanessa Redgrave and actor Corin Redgrave, who died April 6 at 70. Corin's daughter Jemma became an actress, as did Vanessa Redgrave's daughters Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson, who died last year at 45 from injuries in a skiing accident.

Unlike her siblings, Lynn Redgrave said she did not plan on a career in the arts. She entered the family business only after her interest in horse jumping proved unrealistic. Under the tutelage of her brother-in-law, , celebrated director Tony Richardson, Ms. Redgrave made a memorable film debut as a barmaid who screams "Rape!" in "Tom Jones" (1963) before moving on to larger parts on stage and screen.

Impressed by her performance in "Tom Jones," Laurence Olivier hired Ms. Redgrave for his National Theatre Company and cast her in works by Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht. She displayed a talent for light comedy, reportedly stealing the show as a less-than-erudite flapper in Noel Coward's "Hay Fever," while also taking screen roles that elevated her public recognition.

Ms. Redgrave earned an Academy Award nomination for "Georgy Girl," putting her in direct competition with her sister, Vanessa, who starred the same year in "Morgan!" (They both lost to Elizabeth Taylor for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?")

Nevertheless, "Georgy Girl" was Ms. Redgrave's breakthrough and perhaps her finest and most enduring performance, combining what critics regarded as an unpretentious acting style that managed to convey vulnerability and great personal appeal.

"Miss Redgrave has magic in the very way she transforms face and figure from scene to scene, bringing inner beauty and grace to physical terms, contracting and expanding for the size of passion, for the grand laugh at life's ironies and the takeoff on its pretenses," wrote reviewer Judith Crist. "Hers is a beautiful performance."





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