Bryan Forbes
Bryan Forbes CBE | |
---|---|
Born | John Theobald Clarke 22 July 1926 |
Died | 8 May 2013 , England | (aged 86)
Other names | Turk Thrust |
Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, actor, author |
Spouses | |
Children | 2, including Emma Forbes |
Bryan Forbes CBE (/fɔːrbz/; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"[1] and "one of the most important figures in the British film industry".[2]
He directed the film The Stepford Wives (1975) and wrote and/or directed several other critically acclaimed films, including Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and King Rat (1965). He also scripted several films directed by others, such as The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Only Two Can Play (1962).
Early life
Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926
Career
Actor and screenwriter
Forbes trained as an actor at the
He published a short story collection in the early 1950s, which induced producer "Cubby" Broccoli to offer him screenwriting work on The Black Knight (1954).[11] He received his first credit for Second World War film The Cockleshell Heroes (1955),[4][11] while other early screenplays include I Was Monty's Double (1958),[2] and The League of Gentlemen (1960), his breakthrough. Directed by Basil Dearden, Forbes also starred. The film recounted a bank heist carried out by ex-army officers, and gained critical success, including his first BAFTA nomination.[1][2][3]
In 1959, he formed a production company, Beaver Films, with his frequent collaborator Richard Attenborough.[13] Beaver Films made The Angry Silence (1960), a controversial screenplay by Forbes in which Attenborough took the lead role, and the two men shared production responsibilities.[3][13]
Film director
Forbes's directorial debut came with
Forbes wrote and directed
Head of EMI Films
In 1969, Forbes was appointed chief of production and managing director of the
Coinciding with his time at EMI Films,[17] he resumed directorial work with The Raging Moon (1971), starring his wife, Nanette Newman, and Malcolm McDowell.[13]
Later career
From the early 1970s, Forbes divided his energies between cinema, television, theatre, and writing. In 1972 he started work on the documentary Elton John and Bernie Taupin Say Goodbye Norma Jean and Other Things (1973),[21] which chronicled the life of the young Elton John and Bernie Taupin.[22] Taking a full year to complete, the project gave a behind-the-scenes look at the writing and recording of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Besides footage of John's 1973 Hollywood Bowl concert, the film included interviews with John, Taupin, and band members, including Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, as well as John's mother, Sheila, DJM label chief Dick James, and James's son, Stephen. (Some of the concert footage was later licensed for the Eagle Vision Classic Albums series Goodbye Yellow Brick Road documentary.) During filming, Forbes formed a close friendship with John and Taupin, which led to other collaborations with them, including photography on the Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album sleeves. ITV broadcast the documentary in the UK on 4 December 1973,[21] and it was later briefly issued on VHS. It was shown in the U.S. on ABC.
Forbes returned to Hollywood to direct The Stepford Wives (1975), based on Ira Levin's novel of the same name.[13] The thriller about the backlash against the Women's Liberation Movement in the U.S., in which Newman had a supporting role, was to become Forbes's best-known film, partly because of the protests against it.[3][4] Forbes clashed with screenwriter William Goldman over casting decisions and changes to the film's ending made by Forbes, causing Goldman to drop out of the project (while retaining the screenplay credit). Despite its notoriety, The Stepford Wives received mixed reviews and performed weakly at the box office. His subsequent films as a director were less successful: The Slipper and the Rose (1976), with David Frost as executive producer;[23] International Velvet (1978), intended as a continuation of National Velvet (1944), with Newman in the same role as Elizabeth Taylor in the earlier film;[3] Better Late than Never (1983); and The Naked Face (1984).[9] His final film as a screenwriter was Chaplin in 1992.
He served as president of the
For a time Forbes owned a bookshop in Virginia Water, Surrey.[24]
Author
Forbes wrote two volumes of autobiography and several successful novels, the last of which, The Soldier's Story, was published in 2012.[2][13] He was a regular contributor to The Spectator magazine.
Awards and honours
Forbes's 1960 screenplay,
Forbes's directorial debut, Whistle Down the Wind, was nominated for several BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source and Best British Film in 1962.[11][14] Four of his other films were also nominated for BAFTA awards: The League of Gentlemen (1960), Only Two Can Play (1962), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and King Rat (1965).[11]
In 2004, Forbes was made a
Personal life
In 1951 he married Irish actress
Forbes was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975, while working on The Slipper and the Rose; he remained in remission, which he attributed to cutting out gluten and taking vitamins and oil of primrose, together with Newman's care.[4][9] However, he revealed in a 2012 interview that it had been a misdiagnosis. He continued his acting, directing and screenwriting career into the early 1990s, and was still publishing novels in the 2010s.[2][3][13]
He lived in Virginia Water where he ran a bookshop in the 1960s. The shop never made a profit, but he thought "it was 'right' to have a bookshop in his local village".[27] Forbes died at his home in Virginia Water, Surrey, on 8 May 2013 at the age of 86, following a long illness.[2][4][13] Newman-Forbes survives him.
Journalist and former Spectator editor Matthew d'Ancona, a friend of the Forbes family, said: "Bryan Forbes was a titan of cinema, known and loved by people around the world in the film and theatre industries, and known in other fields, including politics. He is simply irreplaceable and it is wholly apt that he died surrounded by his family." Film critic Mark Kermode wrote: "Once had the fan-boyish pleasure of telling Bryan Forbes how much I loved [The] Stepford Wives. He was charming and self-effacing. A great loss."[13]
Select filmography
As actor
- The Small Back Room (1949) as Peterson, dying gunner
- All Over the Town (1949) as Trumble
- Dear Mr. Prohack (1949) as Tony
- The Wooden Horse (1950) as Paul
- Green Grow the Rushes (1951) as Fred Starling – Biddle crew member
- Flesh and Fury (1952) as Fighter (uncredited)
- The World in His Arms (1952) as William Cleggett
- Appointment in London (1953) as The Brat
- Sea Devils (1953) as Willie
- Wheel of Fate (1953) as Ted Reid
- The Million Pound Note (1954) as Todd
- An Inspector Calls (1954) as Eric
- Up to His Neck (1954) as Subby
- The Colditz Story (1955) as Jimmy Winslow
- Passage Home (1955) as Shorty
- Now and Forever (1956) as Frisby
- Mabrouka (1956) as Dying Soldier (scenes deleted)
- The Baby and the Battleship (1956) as Prof. Evans
- Satellite in the Sky (1956) as Jimmy
- It's Great to Be Young (1956) as Mr. Parkes, Organ Salesman
- The Extra Day (1956) as Harry
- Quatermass 2 (1957) as Marsh
- The Key (1958) as Weaver
- I Was Monty's Double (1958) as Young Lieutenant
- Yesterday's Enemy (1959) as Dawson
- The Angry Silence (1960) as Journalist (uncredited)
- The League of Gentlemen (1960) as Martin Porthill
- The Guns of Navarone (1961) as Cohn
- Of Human Bondage (1964) (uncredited)
- A Shot in the Dark (1964, credited as Turk Thrust) as Camp Attendant
- King Rat (1965) as Radio (voice, uncredited)
- The Slipper and the Rose (1976) as Herald (uncredited)
- International Velvet (1978) as Awards Presenter (uncredited)
- December Flower (1984) as Harry Grey
- Restless Natives (1985) as Driver
As screenwriter
- The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)
- Man in the Moon (1960)
- Station Six-Sahara (1962)
- Only Two Can Play (1962)
- Hopscotch (1980)
- Chaplin (1992)
As director
- Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
- The L-Shaped Room (1962)
- Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
- King Rat (1965)
- The Wrong Box (1966)
- The Whisperers (1967)
- Deadfall (1968)
- The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
- The Raging Moon (1971)
- The Stepford Wives (1975)
- The Slipper and the Rose (1976)
- International Velvet (1978)
- Better Late Than Never (1983)
- The Naked Face (1984)
As head of EMI films
- And Soon the Darkness (1970)
- The Breaking of Bumbo (1970)
- Hoffman (1970)
- Eyewitness (1970)
- The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
- Spring and Port Wine (1970)
- The Railway Children (1970)
- A Fine and Private Place (1970) (abandoned)
- The Go-Between (1971)
- Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (1971)
- The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971)
- The Raging Moon (1971)
- Dulcima(1971)
Select writings
Novels
- Truth Lies Sleeping and other stories (1950)
- The Distant Laughter (1972)
- Slipper and the Rose (1976)
- International Velvet (1978)
- Familiar Strangers (1979), published as Stranger in the USA in 1980
- The Rewrite Man (1983)
- The Endless Game (1986)
- A Song At Twilight (1989)
- The Twisted Playground (1993)
- Partly Cloudy (1995)
- Quicksand (1996)
- The Memory of All That (1999)
- The Choice (2007)
- The Soldier's Story (2012)
Non fiction
- Notes for a Life (1974)
- Ned's Girl: The Life of Edith Evans (1977)
- That Despicable Race: A History of the British Acting Tradition (1980)
- A Divided Life (1992)
References
- ^ a b Falk Q."Bryan Forbes: Renaissance man". Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 9 May 2013. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Batty D. Bryan Forbes, acclaimed film director, dies aged 86. The Guardian. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Director Bryan Forbes made CBE". BBC. 12 June 2004. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f Fox M. Bryan Forbes, 'Stepford Wives' Director, is dead at 86. The New York Times. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/106804. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Independent.co.uk. 15 July 1999.
- ^ "Bryan Forbes". 9 May 2013.
- ^ Macdonald R. Albert Herbert: A visionary artist, he found a path from abstraction to religious imagery via etching. The Guardian. 11 June 2008. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e f Bryan Forbes. The Telegraph. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e British Film Institute: Profile at screenline.org. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j British Academy of Film and Television Arts: A tribute to Bryan Forbes CBE: 25 May 2007 Archived 15 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e Barker, D. Bryan Forbes: film director, actor and writer. The Guardian. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Stepford Wives film director Bryan Forbes dies aged 86". BBC News. 8 May 2013.
- ^ a b BAFTA Awards: Film And British Film in 1962. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ Matthew Kennedy "'Thank Heaven: A Memoir, by Leslie Caron", Brightlights.com, issue 67, February 2010
- ^ Phil Wickham The L-Shaped Room profile at screenonline.org
- ^ a b Andrew Roberts "Bryan Forbes profile at British Film Institute website
- ^ Alexander Walker National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, London: Harrap, 1985, p. 114
- ^ "BRYAN FORBES INTERVIEW at ABPC ELSTREE STUDIOS". Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
- ^ Vagg, Stephen (10 October 2021). "Cold Streaks: The Studio Stewardship of Bryan Forbes at EMI". Filmink Magazine.
- ^ a b "Forbes, Bryan (1926–[2013]) – Film and TV credits", BFI screenonline
- ^ Barnes, M. "'Stepford Wives' director Bryan Forbes dies at 86", The Hollywood Reporter. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ "The Museum of Broadcast Communications – Encyclopedia of Television". museum.tv. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- ^ Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling (New York: Anchor Books/Penguin Random House, 2015), p. 82.
- ^ Search at Edgar Awards Database Archived 27 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 9 May 2013
- ^ Sarah Standing "Bryan Forbes was a giant of a husband and father", 10 May 2013, The Daily Telegraph.
- ^ James Wyatt (September 2023). "Virginia Water in the 1960s". Runnymede (North Edition). community-life.co.uk. p. 10-11.
- General sources
- Todd, Derek (7 March 1970). "The Emperor of Elstree's First 300 Days". Kine Weekly. pp. 6–8, 19.
External links
- Bryan Forbes at IMDb
- Bryan Forbes at the BFI's Screenonline
- Britmovie article
- Forbes at hollywood.com
- Bibliography of Forbes's fiction and non-fiction
- A Tribute to Forbes, BAFTAwebcast, May 2007
- Portrait by Noel Haring
- The Papers of Bryan Forbes held at Churchill Archives Centre
- "Bryan Forbes". The British Entertainment History Project.