SIR DAVID LEAN
Name: David Lean
Born: 25 March 1908 Croydon, Greater London, UK
Died: 16 April 1991 London, England
Sir David Lean KBE (March 25, 1908 – April 16, 1991) was an English film
director and producer, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of
Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India.
Widely acclaimed and winning the praise of directors such as Steven Spielberg,
Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick[citation needed], and George
Lucas, Lean was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in
the BFI "Directors Top Directors" poll 2002.
He was born in Croydon, Greater London to Francis William le Blount Lean and the
former Helena Tangye. His parents were Quakers and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded
Leighton Park School in Reading.
Lean started at the bottom, as a clapperboard assistant. By 1930 he was working
as an editor on newsreels, including Gaumont Pictures and Movietone. His career
in feature films began with Escape Me Never in 1935.
He went on to edit Gabriel Pascal's film productions of two George Bernard Shaw
plays, Pygmalion (1938) and Major Barbara (1941), and Powell & Pressburger's
Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) and One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942).
While Lean is now chiefly noted as a film director, for his last film, A Passage
to India (1984), he chose to both direct and edit, and the two activities were
given equal status in the film's credits. Lean was nominated for Academy
Awards in directing, editing, and writing for the film.
His first work as a director was in partnership with Noel Coward on In Which We
Serve (1942), and he went on to adapt several of Coward's plays into successful
films. These included This Happy Breed (1944), Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief
Encounter (1945). These were followed by two celebrated Charles Dickens
adaptations - Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), as well as The
Sound Barrier (1952) a collaboration with the playwright Terence Rattigan, and
what many consider the definitive version of Hobson's Choice (1954), based on
the play by Harold Brighouse.
Summertime (1955), marked a new direction in for Lean. Filmed in colour, it was
shot entirely on location in Venice. U.S.-financed, the film starred Katharine
Hepburn as a middle-aged American woman who has a romance while on holiday in
Venice.
In the following years, Lean went on to make the blockbusters for which he is
best known: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Academy
Award, followed by another for Lawrence of Arabia, (1962). Doctor Zhivago (1965)
was another major hit. In addition, Lean directed some scenes of The Greatest
Story Ever Told (1965) while George Stevens was doing location work in Nevada.
Most of his scenes involved Claude Rains and Jose Ferrer, both of whom had
previously worked with Lean on Lawrence of Arabia. Following the moderately
successful Ryan's Daughter in 1970, he did not direct another film until A
Passage to India (1984), which would be his last. He was knighted in 1984.
He was in the midst of planning an epic production of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo
when he died from cancer, aged 83. Marlon Brando, Paul Scofield, Anthony Quinn,
Christopher Lambert, Isabella Rossellini, and Dennis Quaid were among the
ensemble cast set to star in the film.
Nostromo would eventually be made as a BBC mini-series. Among other films he
attempted to make, but was forced to abandon or pass on to others, are The Wind
Cannot Read (1958), The Bounty (1984), Out of Africa (1985), and Empire of the
Sun (1987).
Name: David Lean
Born: 25 March 1908 Croydon, Greater London, UK
Died: 16 April 1991 London, England
Sir David Lean KBE (March 25, 1908 – April 16, 1991) was an English film
director and producer, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of
Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India.
Widely acclaimed and winning the praise of directors such as Steven Spielberg,
Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick[citation needed], and George
Lucas, Lean was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in
the BFI "Directors Top Directors" poll 2002.
He was born in Croydon, Greater London to Francis William le Blount Lean and the
former Helena Tangye. His parents were Quakers and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded
Leighton Park School in Reading.
Lean started at the bottom, as a clapperboard assistant. By 1930 he was working
as an editor on newsreels, including Gaumont Pictures and Movietone. His career
in feature films began with Escape Me Never in 1935.
He went on to edit Gabriel Pascal's film productions of two George Bernard Shaw
plays, Pygmalion (1938) and Major Barbara (1941), and Powell & Pressburger's
Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) and One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942).
While Lean is now chiefly noted as a film director, for his last film, A Passage
to India (1984), he chose to both direct and edit, and the two activities were
given equal status in the film's credits. Lean was nominated for Academy
Awards in directing, editing, and writing for the film.
His first work as a director was in partnership with Noel Coward on In Which We
Serve (1942), and he went on to adapt several of Coward's plays into successful
films. These included This Happy Breed (1944), Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief
Encounter (1945). These were followed by two celebrated Charles Dickens
adaptations - Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), as well as The
Sound Barrier (1952) a collaboration with the playwright Terence Rattigan, and
what many consider the definitive version of Hobson's Choice (1954), based on
the play by Harold Brighouse.
Summertime (1955), marked a new direction in for Lean. Filmed in colour, it was
shot entirely on location in Venice. U.S.-financed, the film starred Katharine
Hepburn as a middle-aged American woman who has a romance while on holiday in
Venice.
In the following years, Lean went on to make the blockbusters for which he is
best known: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Academy
Award, followed by another for Lawrence of Arabia, (1962). Doctor Zhivago (1965)
was another major hit. In addition, Lean directed some scenes of The Greatest
Story Ever Told (1965) while George Stevens was doing location work in Nevada.
Most of his scenes involved Claude Rains and Jose Ferrer, both of whom had
previously worked with Lean on Lawrence of Arabia. Following the moderately
successful Ryan's Daughter in 1970, he did not direct another film until A
Passage to India (1984), which would be his last. He was knighted in 1984.
He was in the midst of planning an epic production of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo
when he died from cancer, aged 83. Marlon Brando, Paul Scofield, Anthony Quinn,
Christopher Lambert, Isabella Rossellini, and Dennis Quaid were among the
ensemble cast set to star in the film.
Nostromo would eventually be made as a BBC mini-series. Among other films he
attempted to make, but was forced to abandon or pass on to others, are The Wind
Cannot Read (1958), The Bounty (1984), Out of Africa (1985), and Empire of the
Sun (1987).