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Richard Attenborough
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Richard Attenborough autographs, photographs and more @ ebay.co.uk (direct link to photographs)
Richard Samuel Attenborough (1923-2014). His son announced his death (24th August) at the age of 90, just five days short of his 91st birthday. He died at lunchtime on Sunday. His family will release a statement on Monday. He had been confined to
a wheelchair for the past six years following a stroke.
One of the true greats of British Cinema (up there with Hitchcock, Lean, Olivier, Guinness, Mills et al) has gone. And with the recent death of James Garner, that's two more of the greats from The Great Escape gone. Add that to Lauren Bacall passing away and it's beginning to sink in that we will never see their like again. You kind of thought they would always be 'there', older now but in the mood to reflect and come out with their wonderful anecdotes from those years when Hollywood was King. But it is 'life' and time passes. Time spent. We all become yesterday.
What a career though. And that's the great thing about Cinema and why in my book it beats the Theatre. It's all preserved for us to enjoy and marvel at, and for future generations to discover. 'What a baddie!' they will say when they see his Pinkie for the first time; 'can anyone really top Gandhi?' (and that includes Lean); and 'has there ever been a more accurate portrayal of 'someone' as his Christie in 10 RIllington Place?' And that's just the tip of the iceberg as he left so much.
The national newspapers in the UK reported his passing as the major news of the day when it broke but within a few hours it had fallen down the front page. Guess that's the nature of news reprting in this fast-paced world though one major newspaper on their online home page quickly replaced the top of the page with a picture of what Taylor Swift or someone was wearing at an awards ceremony. Kind of sad as he is one of the most important figures in the culture of the UK from the last 50 years or so. You can't replace his contribution to cinema with the debate on how low a person's skirt was.
The Icon of 20th-Century British Film. DVDs at Amazon.com
May 2013: Added extensive scans of a signed Richard Attenborough A Pictorial Film Biography. Added Cry Freedom movie review. Added extensive scans of a signed Cry Freedom book with details of making of film. Added in full the Richard Attenborough foreword to Variety Movie Guide 1994. Added scans of an original letter here. Oh! What a Lovely War UK Dvd Scans added. David Attenborough Website.
25th March 2013: It's been reported that Richard Attenborough has moved into a care home in West London which caters to elderly and sick entertainers to join his wife because of his deteriorating health. Lady Attenborough suffers from senile dementia. He suffered a suspected stroke in 2008.
Beaver Lodge, the hugely imposing and impressive family home on Richmond Green, Richmond, London was sold for £11.5million last year and he has been at the home since then. Selling the family home was a practical move, according to his brother, TV naturalist Sir David.
His younger brother John, a retired motor industry executive, died last November aged 83 from a degenerative brain condition.
Biography: Lord Richard Attenborough, born Richard Samuel Attenborough in Cambridge, UK on the 29th August 1923, has been an important part of British cinema for over 60 years...more
'I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people
Biography
For people of different ages he represents something entirely different. For younger audiences he is the old grey bearded geezer from the blockbuster Jurassic Park (1993). But for older audiences he will be forever Pinkie in Brighton Rock, arguably the greatest villian that British cinema has ever produced.
In between lies a body of work both as a director and actor that propels him up with the likes of Olivier and Hitchcock in importance to British cinema. And his influence has not just been confined to British cinema. He has played and continues to play a major part in maintaining Britain’s cultural heritage, serving as patron to numerous arts organisations.
Attenborough started acting at the age of 12. He trained at RADA (The Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Arts) (he later became Chairman)
and made his professional stage debut at 18. At 19 he made his feature film debut in
In Which We Serve (1942).
Attenborough apotheosized the English wimp, and continued doing so in many of his roles throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
He often played cowardly, untrustworthy worms.
Stand-out roles in movies have included:
His chilling portrayal of murderer John Christie in 10 Rillington Place (1971) must rank as one of his best performances. Alot of the filming was actually done in the West London street of the murderer and Attenborough got into the skin of Christie to such an extent that it is impossible to see how anyone else could of played the murderer.
In the early 60s he set up a successful production company, Beaver Films, with writer/actor Bryan Forbes.
Attenborough turned to directing in the late 1960s, beginning with the well-received anti-war satire Oh, What a Lovely War! (1969). Following Young Winston (1972), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Magic (1978) with a staggering performance from Anthony Hopkins, he achieved great success with Gandhi (1982) and won an Oscar as Best Director. The film took three Oscars. It had been his life ambition to direct Gandhi, and a difficult project to get off the ground considering the supposedly lack of box office appeal.
His follow-up to Gandhi, A Chorus Line (1985) was a misfire, and was disappointing to the artistic and visionary Gandhi. But his next movie, the evocative apartheid drama Cry Freedom (1987) more than made up for this disappointment.
In 1992, he finally fulfilled a long-held ambition to bring to film the life of Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was an ambitious and well intentioned film, with a fine performance from Robert Downey Jr. as Chaplin, but failed at the box-office.
Ironically, Attenborough's next film became the biggest box-office hit of all time: Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993), in which he accepted his first acting role in years. He then directed Anthony Hopkins (for the fifth time) in Shadowlands (1993), before returning to the screen as Kris Kringle in the remake of Miracle on 34th Street (1994). He was Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley in Elizabeth (1998).
In 1998, Attenborough directed Pierce Brosnan Grey Owl, the true story of Archie Grey Owl (Brosnan), a fake Indian guide and writer who inspired the world with his authentic tales of wilderness life and his plea to protect forest
life.
His latest directing project is Closing the Ring (2004). Set in Belfast Northern Ireland during WWII. When a B-17 crashes near the city, the dying rear gunner asks a local to return his ring to his girlfriend back home. Half a century later, a young Belfast man finds the ring, learns its history and tracks down the old girlfriend in North Carolina.
He has been married to the actress Sheila Sim (born 1922) since 1945. They were the first to star in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap in 1952, now the longest-running stage play in the world.
Lord and Lady Attenborough have three children. These include Michael Attenborough (born 1950), artistic director of The Almeida Theatre, London, and Vice Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) . He was formerly married to the actress Jane Seymour from 1971 to 1973.
The Attenboroughs also have a daughter, Charlotte Attenborough, also an actress.
Richard Attenborough Dvds/Books @ at Amazon.com
© - Paul Page (2011)
Tsunami
LORD Attenborough
was last night mourning
the loss of a daughter
and granddaughter in
the tidal wave disaster.
Jane Holland, 49, and her
daughter Lucy, 14, were on a
family holiday in Phuket.
They died alongside Mrs Holland's mother-in-law, also called
Jane Holland. A friend of the film
director and his family said that
although only Lucy's body had
been recovered they had given up
hope for the two women.
Two other grandchildren and
their father survived as the tsunami
struck Thailand on Boxing Day.
News of the tragedy came as:
Scores of Britons were still missing last
night, leaving families across the country
frantic for news. Others, like the Attenboroughs, had already learned the worst.
Their friend Diana Hawkins said in a
statement:
Lord Attenborough, 81, once fondly
recalled how Lucy, then just seven, presented a bouquet to his great friend
Princess Diana at the premiere of the
Sandra Bullock film In Love and War,
which he directed.
He said:
He recently recounted the memory of
taking Lucy to see the film Miracle on
34th Street - in which he played Father
Christmas - when she was three.
His daughter Jane, a former dancer and teacher, met her City
broker husband in 1980, when they
were neighbours in Clapham, South London. When they announced their engagement two years later she said:
The Attenboroughs have a
younger daughter Charlotte, 43, a
former actress who is married to
London's Burning star Graham Sinclair and has two sons.
Their son Michael, 54, is artistic
director of the Almeida Theatre in
London. He was briefly married to
actress Jane Seymour and has two
sons by his second wife, Karen.
Lord Attenborough's 60-year acting career has included Brighton
Rock and Jurassic Park, while
the Oscar-winning Gandhi is
among his directing credits. He
lives in Richmond, Surrey, near
his brother, naturalist Sir David
Attenborough.
Richard Attenborough Dvds/Books @ at Amazon.com
© - Paul Page (2011)
Trivia
He is 5' 7" (1.70 m). Nicknames include: Dickie and Bunter.
Life Vice-President of Chelsea Football Club.
Appointed a CBE in 1967, knighted in 1976 and created a life peer in 1993.
Created an honorary D.Litt of the Universities of Leicester, Kent and Sussex in 1970, 1981 and 1987 respectively.
His mother died in a road accident.
Sheila Sim made her screen debut in the brilliant and atmospheric movie A Canterbury Tale (1944), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and co-starring Eric Portman. Her final movie was The Night My Number Came Up (1955), directed by Leslie Norman, father of the renowned film critic Barry Norman.
Richard Attenborough Dvds/Books @ at Amazon.com
David Attenborough: Biog.
Gandhi [DVD]
Richard Attenborough Dvds/Books @ at Amazon.com
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