Natasha Richardson set to appear with Liam Neeson in last film before her her death

(HMG) – To hear her beautiful voice again will be such sweet sorrow for many. But Natasha Richardson’s final role before she was killed in a skiing accident in Canada last year was with her husband Liam Neeson, in a documentary about the British explorer George Mallory.

The Wildest Dream is partly a love story of how Mallory was torn between his love for his wife Ruth, and his obsession with the “last great adventure”, becoming the first person to climb the highest mountain, Mount Everest. The documentary tells the intersecting stories of Mallory and Conrad Anker, the mountaineer who discovered Mallory’s frozen remains in 1999. Mallory is the guy who is famously quoted as having replied to the question “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” with the retort: “Because it’s there”.

The film is dedicated to Richardson, whose readings of Ruth Mallory’s love letters to her husband have been described as “especially heartfelt and moving”. Liam Neeson, who was married to Richardson for 15 years until her death, narrates the film which is being released in August. Ralph Fiennes provides the voice of Mallory, Hugh Dancy voices Mallory’s fellow climber Andrew Irvine and Alan Rickman is Noel Odell, the last person to see Mallory alive.

On his third expedition, in June 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, both disappeared, last seen alive 800ft below the summit. The news of Mallory and Irvine’s disappearance was widely mourned in Britain to the extent that the two were hailed as national heroes.

The film tells the story through the modern day expedition, the explorer’s letters to Ruth and previously unseen photos and film archive from 1924 which has been restored. In 2007 Anker returned to Everest using replica 1920s-era clothing and equipment and retracing the original route, to try and get a better understanding of what happened to the explorer. Anker set out to solve the mystery of whether Mallory succeeded in reaching the summit. All of Mallory’s belongings were found intact on his body, except a photograph of Ruth, which he had promised to leave at the “top of the world” if he succeeded. Whether Mallory and Irvine reached Everest’s summit is unknown.  The Wildest Dream is set for release in August 2010.

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