NEW YORK — Natasha Richardson, a Tony Award-winning actress whose career melded glamorous celebrity with the bloodline of theater royalty, died Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She had suffered head injuries in a skiing accident Monday north of Montreal, and was flown to New York on Tuesday. She was 45 and lived in Manhattan and in Millbrook, N.Y.
Alan Nierob, a spokesman for her husband, the actor Liam Neeson, announced Richardson's death on Wednesday night.
"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha," a statement said. "They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."
The statement did not disclose the cause of death or discuss Richardson's medical condition.
The gravity of her injuries had prompted an outpouring of public interest and concern and flurries of rumor and speculation in the news media since Monday, when reports of her accident began filtering out of the Mont Tremblant ski resort in the Laurentian Hills.
Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet, had fallen during a beginner's skiing lesson, a resort spokeswoman, Lyne Lortie, said Tuesday. "It was a normal fall; she didn't hit anyone or anything," Lortie said. "She didn't show any signs of injury. She was talking and she seemed all right."
Still, an instructor and a ski patrol member accompanied her off the slopes, and when Richardson complained of a headache about an hour later in her hotel, she was taken by ambulance to a hospital nearby and later transferred to one in Montreal. She was flown to Lenox Hill on Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, as television-news vans kept vigil outside, friends including Lauren Bacall and family members including Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and sister, the actress Joely Richardson, were observed arriving. Neeson was seen crouched beside her in an ambulance in Montreal the day before.
Richardson was an intense and absorbing actress who was unafraid of taking on demanding and emotionally raw roles. Classically trained, she was admired on both sides of the Atlantic for upholding the traditions of one of the great acting families of the modern age.
Her grandfather was Michael Redgrave, one of England's finest tragedians. He passed his gifts, if not always his affection, to his daughters, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, and to his son, Corin Redgrave. The night Vanessa was born, her father was playing Laertes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet.
Richardson was the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the film director Tony Richardson.
Besides her husband, Richardson is survived by their two sons, Micheal Richard Antonio, 13, and Daniel Jack, 12, as well as her mother, her sister and a half sister, Katherine Grimond.
Richardson's Tony Award came in 1998, for best actress in a musical, for her performance as Sally Bowles, the gifted but desperately needy singer in decadent Weimar Berlin who is at the center of "Cabaret."