David Gill (film historian)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

David Ian Gill (9 June 1928 – 28 September 1997) was a British film

motion pictures
and helped restore many early, silent films.

He was born in

sculptor Eric Gill. The family returned to England in 1933 where Gill attended the Belmont Abbey School, Hereford
.

Gill died at his home in Huntingdon, England, aged 69, after a heart attack. He was survived by his wife, Pauline, and two daughters.

Career

Gill trained as a dancer and joined Britain's Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1946, appearing in The Sleeping Princess, which opened in Covent Garden that year. In 1953, he married dancer Pauline Wadsworth, who later taught at The Royal Ballet School.

Gill left

This Week
programmes.

Whilst at Thames, he met

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
.

Gill's unexpected death, in September 1997, came as he was planning a series of archival films on dance and working on Nosferatu (1922), the 1997 entry in the Channel 4 Silents series, which was to take place at the Royal Festival Hall later in the year.

Filmography

  • D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (restoration)
  • Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (restoration)
  • Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius (TV documentary 1989)
  • Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (TV series, 1995, co-producer)
  • D. W. Griffith: Father of Film (1993) (producer)
  • American Masters (producer) (1 episode, 1989)
  • Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987) (TV) (producer)
  • The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) (producer) (1986 alternate version)
  • Unknown Chaplin (1983 TV series, co-producer)
  • Hollywood
     (TV series 1980, co-producer)
  • The Wind (1928) (producer) (restored version)
  • The Blot (1921) (producer) (restored version)

Documentaries

  • Hollywood, David Gill's and Kevin Brownlow's documentary Hollywood, made in 1980 for Thames Television was shown as a 13-part series on PBS TV stations in the United States.
  • The Unknown Chaplin, Gill produced a subsequent three-part series, Unknown Chaplin, with Kevin Brownlow.
  • Till I End My Song, a documentary on the
    film awards
    in 1968.

His documentaries on

This Week
.

Articles

  • David Gill, The Birth of a Nation. Orphan or Pariah? Griffithiana, no. 60/61, October 1997, pp. 17–29 (film restoration)

References

  • Alexander, Max (12 November 1989). "To the Rescue of America's Silent Films". The New York Times.
  • "David Gill, 69, Dies; A Restorer of Films from the Silent Era". The New York Times. 12 October 1997.
  • "Obituary" (PDF). The Independent. 2 October 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2008.
  • "Obituary" (PDF). The Daily Telegraph. 4 October 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2008.
  • "Obituary" (PDF). The Guardian. 2 October 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2008.

External links

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