REDGRAVE IS (GREEN) THUMBS UP ON THIS ONE

Although it may not be the usual setting for a veteran English actress, Lynn Redgrave says there’s nothing odd about her cameo appearance Saturday at the 32nd annual Southern California Home and Garden Show in Anaheim.

“I am, after all, the chief gardener at home,” she said with a laugh. “I could tell anyone (who attends) how to use a weed whacker . . . and I do know how to make a geranium grow.”

In keeping with the show’s “London Town” theme, Redgrave will appear at 2 p.m. on opening day of the weeklong event and give a 30-minute talk ranging from “the royal wedding to my luck in the garden,” she said. It will be her only appearance, but the show will continue through Aug. 24 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Her green thumb notwithstanding, it still seems like a peculiar place for Redgrave. With her patrician English accent, numerous screen, stage and television credits, and family acting history (her sister is Vanessa Redgrave and her father the late British actor Sir Michael Redgrave), a home and garden show might not seem quite lofty enough for her talents.

But the scarlet-haired actress scoffed at such a notion. “That, I think, would be a most peculiar attitude to have,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “It’s false snobbery for an actor or anyone to think they are above anything that attracts a lot of people. I enjoy making appearances and look forward to this one.”

Such events allow her to be spontaneous and reach a large crowd, Redgrave said, noting that she isn’t a newcomer to the guest appearance side of the entertainment business. Redgrave has hosted ceremonies for the Hollywood Women’s Press Club and recently helped roast Los Angeles television newsmen Jess Marlow and Bill Stout for the Greater Los Angeles Press Club.

“I like that type of environment because you get to be playful and come up with things off the top of your head,” she explained. “I’ll have a prepared talk (at the home and garden show) but much of it will be (impromptu) fun.”

The event was especially attractive, she said, because of the English theme. Fresh from hosting coverage of Prince Andrew’s and Sarah Ferguson’s wedding for cable television, Redgrave plans to share some of her observances of the ceremony and her own feelings about the British persona.

Redgrave, who lives in Topanga Canyon but remains a British citizen, admits that she’s slightly perplexed by America’s fascination with her home country.

“Maybe it’s a unified guilt because you threw us out in 1776,” she said. “Really, though, I don’t know what it is. The interest in royalty might be that they are fantasy figures, much like Valentino, Gable and Monroe were in their time. Movie stars don’t really have that same star quality now, and I think you (Americans) crave that.”

The wedding coverage by the Lifetime cable station underscores that interest, Redgrave said. As one of the program’s chief hosts, she interviewed various people--journalists, society types and lesser royalty. Even show biz sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer was asked to comment.

“With Dr. Ruth, we put sex for royalty in the spotlight,” Redgrave said.

After Saturday’s appearance, Redgrave will get back to work on a one-woman show she’s been writing for several months. In the mold of Lily Tomlin’s Tony-award-winning “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” it will feature various characters “who just talk about life,” she said.

The show doesn’t have a title yet and is still many months from being finished. Redgrave hopes it will give her the opportunity to explore the numerous “personality types” she’s portrayed over the years.

“I am, essentially, a character actor,” Redgrave explained. “I’ve played whores and tarts and straight aristocratic English girls. I’ve also played bitchy types. I’ve even played a woman who falls in love with another woman (in ABC’s recent movie, “My Two Loves”). I want to bring some of that versatility to my show.”