{"id":32709,"date":"2014-08-25T18:23:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32709"},"modified":"2014-08-25T23:38:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T03:38:21","slug":"richard-attenborough-british-actor-turned-film-maker-who-directed-oscar-winninggandhi-dies-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32709","title":{"rendered":"Richard Attenborough British Actor Turned Film Maker who Directed Oscar Winning\u201dGandhi\u201d Dies at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY<\/p>\n<p>BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Richard Attenborough, a distinguished stage and film actor in Britain who reinvented himself to become the internationally admired director of the epic \u201cGandhi\u201d and other films, died on Sunday. He was 90.<\/p>\n<p>His death was confirmed by his son, Michael, according to the BBC.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S03FdpuF5qg?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Mahatma Gandhi travels across India \u266b in Gandhi (1982)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Until the early 1960s, Mr. Attenborough was a familiar actor in Britain but little known in the United States. In London he was the original detective in Agatha Christie\u2019s play \u201cThe Mousetrap.\u201d On the British screen, he made an early mark as the sociopath Pinkie Brown in an adaptation of Graham Greene\u2019s \u201cBrighton Rock\u201d (1947).<\/p>\n<p>But it was not until he appeared with his friend Steve McQueen and a sterling ensemble cast in the 1963 war film \u201cThe Great Escape,\u201d his first Hollywood feature, that he found a trans-Atlantic audience. His role, as a British officer masterminding an escape plan from a German prisoner-of-war camp, was integral to one of the most revered and enjoyable of all World War II films.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32715\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_7849.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32715\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/IMG_7849-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Richard Attenborough (August 29, 1923-August 24, 2014)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32715\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-32715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Richard Attenborough (August 29, 1923-August 24, 2014)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>That performance established him in Hollywood and paved the way for a series of highly visible roles. He was the alcoholic navigator alongside James Stewart\u2019s pilot in \u201cThe Flight of the Phoenix\u201d (1965), a survival story about a plane crash in the desert. He won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards for best supporting actor: first in \u201cThe Sand Pebbles\u201d (1966), also starring McQueen, set during China\u2019s civil war in the 1920s, and then in the whimsical \u201cDoctor Dolittle\u201d (1967), playing Albert Blossom, a circus owner, alongside Rex Harrison as the veterinarian who talks to animals. In \u201cThe Chess Players\u201d (1977), by the renowned Indian director Satyajit Ray, he was a British general in 19th-century India.<\/p>\n<p>Years later Mr. Attenborough became known to a new generation of filmgoers as the wealthy head of a genetic engineering company whose cloned dinosaurs run amok in Steven Spielberg\u2019s box office hit \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But for most of Mr. Attenborough\u2019s later career, his acting was sporadic while he devoted much of his time to directing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Directing a Classic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGandhi\u201d (1982), an epic but intimate biographical film, was his greatest triumph.<br \/>\nWith the little-known Ben Kingsley in the title role, the film traces Mohandas K. Gandhi\u2019s life as an Indian lawyer who forsakes his job and possessions and takes up a walking staff to lead his oppressed country\u2019s fight for independence from Britain through a campaign of passive resistance, ending in his assassination.<\/p>\n<p>Among the film\u2019s critics were historians, who said it contributed to mythmaking, portraying Gandhi as a humble man who brought down an empire without acknowledging that the British, exhausted by World War II, were eager to unload their Indian possessions. Nevertheless, \u201cGandhi\u201d was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won eight, including best picture, best director, best cinematography, best original screenplay and best actor (Mr. Kingsley).<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Attenborough brought the film to fruition after a 20-year battle to raise money and interest often reluctant Hollywood producers, one of whom famously predicted that there would be no audience for \u201ca little brown man in a sheet carrying a beanstalk.\u201d (Mr. Attenborough ended up producing it himself.)<br \/>\nMr. Attenborough mortgaged his house in a London suburb, sold works of art and, as he put it, spent \u201cso much money I couldn\u2019t pay the gas bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The film had 430 speaking parts and used over 300,000 extras for Gandhi\u2019s funeral. No one expected it to recoup its $22 million cost, but it wound up earning 20 times that amount.<\/p>\n<p>By then Mr. Attenborough had embraced the role of director, or \u201cactor-manager,\u201d as he called himself. (He said he understood actors and could help them give confident, truthful performances.) His first foray into directing was \u201cOh! What a Lovely War\u201d (1969), an offbeat satirical musical about World War I with an all-star cast including Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave.<\/p>\n<p>In 1972 there was \u201cYoung Winston,\u201d starring Simon Ward, about Churchill\u2019s early years. In 1977 there was \u201cA Bridge Too Far,\u201d a cautionary World War II epic about a disastrous Allied defeat, which also fielded a starry cast: Olivier, Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine and others.<\/p>\n<p>After \u201cGandhi\u201d came a 1985 adaptation of \u201cA Chorus Line,\u201d Michael Bennett\u2019s musical about Broadway hoofers. It was a misfire \u2014 a faithful but uneasy translation to film. Mr. Attenborough had more success with \u201cCry Freedom!\u201d (1987), a stirring look at the friendship between the antiapartheid fighter Steve Biko (Denzel Washington) and a journalist (Kevin Kline) in South Africa in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Five years later, after a hiatus from directing, Mr. Attenborough returned with what was largely considered to be his biggest flop: \u201cChaplin,\u201d a long, sprawling biography of the silent film star Charlie Chaplin. Despite an admired and Oscar-nominated performance by Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and a potent mix of drama and slapstick humor, \u201cChaplin\u201d did poorly at the box office. Like many of Mr. Attenborough\u2019s movies, the story of Chaplin, the lowly born clown who defied the odds by achieving world renown, celebrated courage and endeavor. It was also an article of faith for him that his films told clear stories and said something significant to wide audiences. \u201cAll my work questions the establishment, authority, intolerance and prejudice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Champagne Socialist\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yet his life was entwined with the establishment. He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1967. He was knighted in 1976, made a baron in 1993 and given a seat in the House of Lords. He was variously chairman of the British Film Institute, Channel Four Television, Capital Radio and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.<\/p>\n<p>If his heroes were those who challenged institutions from without, Mr. Attenborough sought to effect change from within. He also led the Actors\u2019 Charitable Trust (now the Actors\u2019 Children\u2019s Trust), which helps actors\u2019 children and actors in old age. He was the moving spirit behind a center offering arts to the disabled in his native Leicester.<\/p>\n<p>He was credited with inspiring Diana, Princess of Wales, whom he coached in public speaking at Prince Charles\u2019s urging, to start her campaign against land mines. In his maiden speech in the House of Lords, he criticized the government for neglecting the arts.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Hart, writing in The Sunday Times in London, called him \u201can ennobled Champagne socialist of the old school, a mass of good causes and inconsistencies.\u201d On the set he was known for his genial charm, calling everyone \u201cdarling,\u201d however mighty or marginal they were. William Goldman, the screenwriter of \u201cA Bridge Too Far,\u201d called Mr. Attenborough \u201cby far the finest, most decent human being\u201d he had ever met in the movie business.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Samuel Attenborough was born in Cambridge on Aug. 29, 1923, the eldest son of Frederick Attenborough, an Anglo-Saxon scholar who became the principal of University College, Leicester, and his wife, Mary, a writer who crusaded for women\u2019s rights and took in Basque and German refugees. The Attenboroughs adopted two Jewish sisters who had arrived in Britain from Berlin in September 1939, too late for them to be sent safely to relatives in New York.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Calling to Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Unlike his brothers \u2014 David, who became a noted biologist and television broadcaster, and John, who went into the auto business \u2014 Richard was an academic failure who was happiest when performing in plays. He determined on an acting career, he said, after seeing Chaplin in \u201cThe Gold Rush\u201d in 1935 on a trip to London with his father. \u201cI saw people laughing and crying into their handkerchiefs,\u201d he once said, \u201cand on the train back to Leicester, I said to myself, \u2018I want to do that, too.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>Leaving school at 16, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and eventually married a fellow student, Sheila Sim, who became a well-known actress herself before abandoning the theater to look after their three children and become a magistrate.<\/p>\n<p>Besides his wife and son, Michael, survivors include a daughter, Charlotte Attenborough. Another daughter, Jane Holland, died in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 along with her daughter, Lucy.<br \/>\nEven before he joined the Royal Air Force as a military cameraman in 1943, photographing German-held sites before and after bombing, Mr. Attenborough was performing. He made his professional stage debut while still in school, in 1941, in \u201cAh, Wilderness!\u201d No\u00ebl Coward cast him as a terrified boy sailor in the 1942 film \u201cIn Which We Serve,\u201d and he made his West End debut as the bitter young hero in a revival of Clifford Odets\u2019s \u201cAwake and Sing!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More substantial success came with his role as the teenage Pinkie in \u201cBrighton Rock,\u201d in 1947, followed a year later by a much-praised performance as a working-class adolescent in an elite school in \u201cThe Guinea Pig,\u201d renamed \u201cThe Outsider\u201d in the United States. By the end of the 1940s he had a fan club of 15,000.<\/p>\n<p>For the next decade and a half, Mr. Attenborough acted primarily in British-made films. Then came \u201cThe Great Escape.\u201d Though McQueen was the film\u2019s undeniable star, as a jaunty, rebellious American, Mr. Attenborough turned in a calm but commanding performance as a squadron leader.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32722\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/RA082514.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32722\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/RA082514.jpg\" alt=\"Mr. Attenborough as a sociopath in John Boulting\u2019s drama \u201cBrighton Rock\u201d (1947). (Credit Associated British Picture Corporation)\" width=\"180\" height=\"227\" class=\"size-full wp-image-32722\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-32722\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mr. Attenborough as a sociopath in John Boulting\u2019s drama \u201cBrighton Rock\u201d (1947). (Credit Associated British Picture Corporation)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Two years later he won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for his performance in \u201cS\u00e9ance on a Wet Afternoon\u201d (1964) as the seedy husband of a neurotic psychic (Kim Stanley) with whom he schemes to kidnap a wealthy girl. The film was one of many he made with his own production company, Beaver Films, formed with the director Bryan Forbes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Later Roles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He continued to act sporadically in the 1970s \u2014 notably as the British serial killer John Christie in \u201c10 Rillington Place\u201d (1971) \u2014 and then largely disappeared from the screen until he ended a long hiatus in 1993 with his supporting role in \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d There were subsequent film roles \u2014 among them Kris Kringle in a 1994 remake of \u201cMiracle on 34th Street,\u201d the English ambassador in Kenneth Branagh\u2019s four-hour version of \u201cHamlet\u201d (1996) and the chief adviser of Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett) in \u201cElizabeth\u201d(1998) \u2014 but by then Mr. Attenborough was devoting most of his time to directing.<\/p>\n<p>One film he took particular pride in was \u201cShadowlands\u201d (1993), an elaborate adaptation of William Nicholson\u2019s play about the love affair between C. S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and a divorced American woman (Debra Winger). But he also knew failures, like \u201cIn Love and War\u201d (1996), a Hemingway biopic with Chris O\u2019Donnell and Sandra Bullock, and \u201cGrey Owl\u201d (1999), starring Pierce Brosnan as a Canadian trapper.<\/p>\n<p>In his later years Mr. Attenborough was chancellor of the University of Sussex, stepping down in 2008. He returned to directing in 2007 with\u201cClosing the Ring,\u201d a romantic drama starring Shirley MacLaine. But the prospective film that had come to preoccupy him almost as much as \u201cGandhi,\u201d a biography of Tom Paine, remained unmade at his death.<\/p>\n<p>In 2008, in collaboration with his longstanding associate Diana Hawkins, he published an autobiography, \u201cEntirely Up to You, Darling.\u201d The book chronicles a full and eventful life. But it ends with the death of his daughter and granddaughter in the 2004 tsunami, and his regretting the time he never spent with them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWork,\u201d he wrote, \u201calways took precedence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy: New York Times<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton32709\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D32709&amp;text=Richard%20Attenborough%20British%20Actor%20Turned%20Film%20Maker%20who%20Directed%20Oscar%20Winning%E2%80%9DGandhi%E2%80%9D%20Dies%20at%2090&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE Richard Attenborough, a distinguished stage and film actor in Britain who reinvented himself to become the internationally admired director of the epic \u201cGandhi\u201d and other films, died on Sunday. He was 90. His death was confirmed by his son, Michael, according to the BBC. Mahatma Gandhi travels across India \u266b in Gandhi &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32709\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Richard Attenborough British Actor Turned Film Maker who Directed Oscar Winning\u201dGandhi\u201d Dies at 90&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32709"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32740,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32709\/revisions\/32740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}