After two days of confusion, it’s been confirmed that Natasha Richardson passed away some time after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a skiing accident on Monday, March 16th. She was 45.
The accident, which occurred at a Canadian ski resort, did not appear life-threatening at first; after complaining about a headache, she went to a hospital in Montreal and was then flown via private jet to New York City on Tuesday.
Eventually it was revealed to People and other sources that Richardson had succumbed to a vegetative state in which her heart was beating but she was brain dead with no chance of recovery. Sometime after that, the decision was made to take her off life support.
Richardson is survived by two famous family members — her husband, Liam Neeson, and her mother, Vanessa Redgrave — and her two children, Michael, 13, and Daniel, 12. Her father, Tony Richardson, the Oscar-winning director of Tom Jones, died in 1991.
A veteran of dozens of stage performances, Richardson is best known in the film business for her roles in movies like Patty Hearst (1988), Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), Nell (1994), and The Parent Trap (1998). She most recently appeared in 2007’s Evening, alongside her mother, and also appears in the as-yet-unreleased-in-America Wild Child, starring Emma Roberts.
