production of the 1982 Oscar best picture “Gandhi” but was best known to American audiences for his role in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” and its first sequel as park creator John Hammond, died on Sunday, his son tells BBC News. He was 90.
The stocky British
filmmaker was awarded a life peerage by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for his
stage work and for his efforts behind and in front of the camera to promote
British cinema.
While Attenborough
had been a prominent character actor in his native country since the early
1940s, he also achieved much as a producer, motion picture executive and
cultural impresario. At various times he was chairman of the British Film
Institute, Channel 4, Goldcrest Films, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and
Capital Radio and a director of the Young Vic and the British Film Institute.
In the late ’70s, he helped preserve and restore London ’s Duke of York Theater.
A career in film
directing began in 1969 with an adaptation of Joan Littlewood’s biting musical
satire “Oh! What a Lovely War.” Few of his directing efforts achieved the
stature of “Gandhi,” which he had championed for more than 20 years. But there
were noteworthy attempts to deal with historical and biographical subjects
including “Cry Freedom,” about South African apartheid; “Chaplin,” a biography
of the immortal screen comic; and “Shadowlands,” based on William Nicholson’s
play focusing on British writer C.S. Lewis.
“I have no interest
in being remembered as a great creative filmmaker,” he once said. “I want to be
remembered as a storyteller.”
Despite more than
50 years as a stage and screen actor — including supporting roles in adventure
pics “The Flight of the Phoenix ” (1965) and “The
Sand Pebbles” (1966) and “Doctor Dolittle” (1967) — it was only in 1992 that
Attenborough achieved widespread international recognition for his starring
role in “Jurassic
Park ,” the
largest-grossing film ever at the time. (Later acting credits included Kenneth
Branagh’s “Hamlet” and the Cate Blanchett starrer “Elizabeth.”)
In the late 1950s,
in an effort to enhance the quality of his movie assignments, Attenborough
united with writer-director Bryan Forbes to create Beaver Films. Their first
effort, 1960’s “The Angry Silence,” was a sharply defined working-class drama,
part of the new generation of realistic British films. In addition, Beaver
produced “The League of U.S. coupled with his
supporting role in hit WWII actioner “The Great Escape” in 1963 led to a career
as a Hollywood character actor starting with “The Flight of the Phoenix ” (1965) and “The
Sand Pebbles” (1966).
Gentlemen,” “Whistle Down the Wind,” “The L-Shaped
Room” and “Seance on a Wet Afternoon” between 1961 and 1964. The last film, in
which Attenborough co-starred with Kim Stanley, brought him the British Academy
Award along with his work in “Guns at Batasi.” The positive reception for “Seance”
in the
In 1967 he appeared
in the big-budget musical “Doctor Dolittle,” which brought him a Golden Globe
for supporting actor.
With the help of
British actors including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, John
Mills and Michael Redgrave, Attenborough was able to persuade Paramount
Pictures to bank his debut directing effort, an adaptation of Joan Littlewood’s
WWI fantasia “Oh What a Lovely War.” Though not a financial success in the U.S. , the film
was honored with a Golden Globe and six British Academy Awards.
Attenborough
continued to act in films through the early ’70s in such efforts as “David
Copperfield,” “A Severed Head,” “Loot” and the chilling “10 Rillington Place ,” in which he played
a mass murderer. By 1972 he had the money to shoot biographical adventure
“Young Winston,” based on the early life of Winston Churchill. The pic was well
received, but his next film, 1977’s “A Bridge Too Far,” sported an
international name cast but was a $25 million flop.
To produce and
direct his next film, a biography of the life of Indian pacifist leader
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Attenborough beat the bushes for 20 years and redoubled his
efforts only after Lean abandoned a similar project. He turned down an offer to
be associate director of Britain’s National Theater, mortgaged his house, sold
his cars, pawned his paintings, took on a number of subpar roles in films such
as “Brannigan,” “Rosebud” and “Ten Little Indians” and made a poor directing
choice in “Magic” for producer Joseph E. Levine, basically done as a favor to
interest Levine in financing “Gandhi.”
With the help of
Goldcrest Films and Indian’s National Film Development Corp., Attenborough had
financing in hand by the end of the 1970s. He passed on several prominent
actors such as Alec Guinness and Dustin Hoffman to cast a highly regarded Royal
Shakespeare Company actor, Ben Kingsley, who was part Indian.
The film copped
eight Oscars, including two for Attenborough as best director and for producing
the best picture. Attenborough detailed his struggle to make the film in a
book, “In Search of Gandhi,” published in 1982.
In 1985, he was
named chairman of Goldcrest just after he completed work on a failed film
adaptation of the Broadway musical “A Chorus Line.” His next film, also a
personal project, was “Cry Freedom,” the story of British journalist Donald
Woods (played by Kevin Kline) and South African activist-martyr Steven Biko (a
role for which Denzel Washington received a supporting actor Oscar nomination).
His 1992 biopic
“Chaplin” was less successful, though Robert Downey Jr. drew a deserved Oscar
nomination for best actor. The following year Attenborough directed Anthony
Hopkins and Oscar nominated Debra Winger in “Shadowlands,” which proved both a
commercial and critical success.
That was the same
year Attenborough’s face finally become familiar across America (and the world) in “Jurassic Park ,”
Spielberg’s monumental blockbuster based on Michael Crichton’s novel. It was
his first acting assignment in 13 years and led to further work in front of the
camera: He played Kris Kringle in John Hughes’ remake of “The Miracle on 34th
Street” for the Fox Network, and over the next several years appeared in roles
in Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet,” the Cate Blanchett starrer “Elizabeth” and
telepic “The Railway Children” (2000). In 2006 he appeared in “Welcome to World
War One,” a documentary about the making of “Oh! What a Lovely War.”
Attenborough was
still directing, too. In 1996 he helmed “In Love and War,” starring Chris
O’Donnell and Sandra Bullock in the story of the young Ernest Hemingay and a
nurse he loved after he was injured in WWI. His 1999 film “Grey Owl” starred
Pierce Brosnan as a Canadian fur trapper who became a conservationist.
Attenborough attempted a film that, like “Gandhi,” carried a sociopolitical message,
but Variety called the direction “old fashioned.”
After an absence of eight years,
Attenborough directed the sentimental tale “Closing the Ring” (2007), starring
Christopher Plummer and Shirley MacLaine.
In May 2012
Attenborough teamed with Martin Scorsese and Anthony Haas to develop the film
“Silver Ghost,” a drama based on the true story of the founding of Rolls Royce.
Attenborough was to direct, but he was in rapidly declining health after
suffering a stroke in 2008 that left him in a wheelchair.
The oldest son of
an Anglo-Saxon scholar and university administrator, Attenborough was the
eldest of three sons. (Brother David is a naturalist behind many acclaimed
BBC documentary series). His mother, the former Mary Clegg, was the daughter of
art historian Samuel Clegg.
Born in Cambridge , he was already
involved in amateur theatrics by his teens. In 1940 Attenborough won a
scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London , making his professional debut while
still a student in a production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah Wilderness!” In 1942 he
made his screen debut in Noel Coward’s “In Which We Serve,” directed by David
Lean.
RADA honored him
with the Bancroft Medal for fine acting in 1942 and, upon leaving school, he
made his West End debut in Clifford Odets’
“Awake and Sing.” Significant roles in productions of “Twelfth Night” and
“Brighton Rock” followed before Attenborough enlisted in the Royal Air Force,
becoming part of its film unit. He also flew film reconnaissance missions over Germany during
the war.
In 1946 he signed a
contract with producers John and Ray Boulting. He reprised his stage role in
the film version of “Brighton Rock,” followed by “The Guinea Pig” in 1948 and
“The Gift Horse” in 1952.
His film career
sputtered in the 1950s: Projects like “Eight O’Clock Walk” and “The Baby and
the Battleship” were abysmal. So he returned to the stage in “To Dorothy, a
Son,” “Double Image” and Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” (appearing in the
original cast as Detective Sergeant Trotter), which became England ’s
longest-running show.
Beginning in 1956,
the film side picked up when he appeared for the Boultings in a series of
social satires including “Private’s Progress” and “I’m All Right, Jack.”
His autobiography
“Entirely Up to You, Darling” was published in 2008.
Attenborough was
married in early 1945 to actress Sheila Sim, with whom he had three children,
Jane, Charlotte and Michael, all of whom worked in the performing arts.
Upon hearing about
his death, Steven Spielberg issued the following statement about Attenborough:
“Dickie Attenborough was passionate about everything in his life – family,
friends, country and career. He made a gift to the world with his emotional
epic “Ghandi” and he was the perfect ringmaster to bring the dinosaurs back to
life as John Hammond in ‘Jurassic
Park .’ He was a dear
friend and I am standing in an endless line of those who completely adored
him.”
--- Extract from Variety
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