Vanessa Redgrave’s Oscar acceptance speech remains a startling watch. It was 1978 and the star had just scooped the best supporting actress award for playing an anti-Nazi hero in Julia, opposite Jane Fonda. After taking the stage in her billowing black velvet dress, she was presented with her golden statuette by John Travolta.

The run-up to the ceremony was marred by controversy and threats against Redgrave because she had narrated and produced The Palestinian, a documentary that was seen by some as supporting Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation, the previous year. An effigy of Redgrave, then 41, was burned by Jewish activists outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles; counterprotestors waved the Palestinian flag. So fraught was the atmosphere that police sharpshooters were placed on the roof of the theatre to guard against a potential assassin.

“You should be very proud that in the last few weeks you have stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behaviour is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world,” she told Hollywood’s elite. Some booed. The actress would later claim that she was specifically referring to activists from the Jewish Defense League, but many interpreted her speech as being hostile to Israel generally. It certainly damaged her career.