Tuesday 25 February 2014

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" an old actor called Tom Courtenay, once a Northern lad who told Mrs Brown "you've got a lovely daughter"

Tom Courtenay is 77 today. I remember seeing him on black and white tv in the August of 1963 in a Television Playhouse play called 'The Lads' which also featured John Thaw. I was 16 and Tom was 26 when he sang Trevor Peacock's title song : 'Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter' ( lyrics at the bottom of the page).
Here he sings the song against a backdrop of clips from the film 'Billy Liar' which he made with the beautiful Julie Christie in the same year :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsaXnZSipBA

Things you possibly didn't know about Tom, that he :

* was born in Hull where his father was a boat painter, left school and after the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, made his stage début in Edinburgh in 1960 and took over from Albert Finney in the title role of 'Billy Liar' at the Cambridge Theatre in 1961 saying : "We both have the same problem, overcoming the flat harsh speech of the North."

* had his film debut in 1962 with 'Private Potter', directed by Finnish-born Caspar Wrede and starred in 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner', directed by Tony Richardson and played 'Billy' in 1963 and encapsulated the freedom of running in the countryside while at reform school : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXMS5ZXKvYA and the triumph of deliberately losing the race the Governor, Michael Redgrave, had pinned his heart on winning for the school, seen here by fast forwarding to the wonderful finale : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixtQ28Gl1Wk

* starred in  John Schlesinger's film version of 'Billy Liar' in 1963 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFdJ-Pr15S4

* was, for his role as the revolutionary leader Pasha Antipov in 'Doctor Zhivago' in 1965, nominated for an Academy Award for 'Best Supporting Actor' : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6raF7kcJJs

* played opposite Dirk Bogard in 'King and Country' directed by Joseph Losey : http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/413663/King-And-Country-Movie-Clip-They-Can-t-Shoot-Me.html
and had parts in the War films : 'Operation Crossbow' and 'The Night of the Generals'.

* returned to film when he played the title role in the latter's 1970 production of 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_XFkKN2fzQ

* said that he had not particularly enjoyed film acting and from the mid-1960s concentrated more on stage work and in 1968 at the age of 31, began a long association with the city of Manchester when he played in 'The Playboy of the Western World' for the Century Theatre, the precursor of Royal Exchange Theatre where he gave man stage performances including 'King Lear' in 1999 and 'Uncle Vanya' in 2001.

* back in film played the dresser in 'The Dresser' with Albert Finney in 1984.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDkMB9Y_4nk


* had his memoir 'Dear Tom: Letters From Home', comprising those exchanged between him and his mother, interspersed with his own recollections of life as a young student actor in London in the early 1960s, published to critical accalaim in 2000.

* at the age of 74 in 2011, joined the cast of 'Gambit', a film starring fellow RADA alumnus Alan Riskman and in 2012 co-starred in 'Quartet' directed by Dustin Hoffman and with Maggie Smith.

Mrs. Brown you've got a lovely daughter.
Girls as sharp as her are somethin' rare',
But it's sad, she doesn't love me now,
She's made it clear enough it ain't no good to pine .

She wants to return those things I bought her.
Tell her she can keep them just the same.
Things have changed, she doesn't love me now,
She's made it clear enough it ain't no good to pine.

Walkin' about, even in a crowd, well,
You'll pick her out, makes a bloke feel so proud.

If she finds that I've been round to see you,
Tell her that I'm well and feelin' fine.
Don't let on, don't say she's broke my heart,
I'd go down on my knees but it's no good to pine.

Walkin' about, even in a crowd, well,
You'll pick her out, makes a bloke feel so proud.

If she finds that I've been round to see you,
Tell her that I'm well and feelin' fine.
Don't let on, don't say she's broke my heart,
I'd go down on my knees but it's no good to pine.

Mrs. Brown you've got a lovely daughter.

Friday 21 February 2014

Why no parliamentary sketch writer could replace Simon Hoggart and 53,500 signatures are needed for Maggie Watts e-petition for research into the cancer which killed him

Simon died from the effects of pancreatic cancer on January 5th. He was 67 years old. I've been reading his writing in the Guardian newspaper for the last 45 years and since he joined it in 1968. Although I didn't know him, like many thousands of others, I miss him and feel as though I've lost and old friend who, on meeting, always cheered me up made me laugh.

The cancer which killed Simon remains the cinderella of cancers in comparison with bowel, breast and prostate. Only more funding and public awareness will lead to earlier detection and, ultimately, better survival rates. It is often called the 'silent killer' since many of its symptoms mirror other less critical illnesses and doctors may not recognise these early enough, resulting in lost time before diagnosis and a terminal outcome. It kills 7,900, in Britain each year with 75% of cases in those aged 65 years and over.

Last year, Maggie Watts, who lost her husband to pancreatic cancer at the age of just 48 in 2009, launched a UK Government E-petition to push it further up the political agenda.
The petition is a call to :
'Provide more funding and awareness for pancreatic cancer to aid long overdue progress in earlier detection and, ultimately, improved survival rates'

Maggie speaking to ITN : http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2014-01-21/pancreatic-cancer-campaign

So, in memory of Simon, please sign Maggie's petition and spread it to family, friends and colleagues though facebook, twitter and other social media to help her get her 100,000 signatures by April 8th : http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48389
 
What went into making Simon, the boy ? who :

* was born in 1946 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, before moving to Hull where his father worked as a Staff Tutor at the University until 1959 and where he went Hymer's College, an independent boys' school.

* was 11 years old when his father who became a national figure with his book, 'The Uses of Literacy' and 14 in 1960, when he was called as an expert witness in the trial dealing with the publication of D.H.Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' which reduced censorship and ushered in the permissive 1960's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8Sg2f-u1A

* with his father working as Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leicester, was a pupil at the celebrated Wyggeston Grammar School, developed a lasting affection for Leicester City Football Club and at home, met a rich array of guests including the poet WH Auden (right), who taught him how to make a dry martini, extolled the merits of food mixers and talked about drugs.

* with his world view shaped by his family roots in the industrial North, left school in 1964 at the age of 18 and took a year off to to work in school in Uganda, where he 'was a terrible teacher', before returning to study English at King's College, Cambridge and wrote a column spiced with malicious gossip called 'Mungo Fairweather's Diary' in its 'Varsity' newspaper.

What went into Simon, the journalist in the making ? who :

* left University at the age of 23 in 1968, joined 'The Gaurdian' as a graduate recruit in its Manchester Office and learnt lessons in the trade of journalism when, for example, writing that a Chelsea v Blackpool game, evoked 'Greek tragedy and the blinding of Oedipus', only to be bought up short by the night editor asking : "Will you tell me one thing? Were they playing with a ball or a discus?"

* was picked out to cover 'Northern Ireland' where, working with Simon Winchester, according to Alan Rushbridger, the 'initial spells were arduous and sometimes dangerous. He learned the hard way how to write tightly, vividly and quickly.'

* stayed for five years and in 1972  filed a piece about the excessive behaviour of the Parachute Regiment in the Province
which was immediately denounced by the Military, just a few days before mounting political tension led to the shooting of  26 civil right protesters and deaths of 13 by the British Army in Derry on 'Bloody Sunday'.

* in 1973, at the age of 27,  moved to London to join the paper's Westminster staff as a political reporter and typed on a battered imperial typewriter attached with a handwritten note to the effect : 'Always remember, you are not writing for your contacts, for MPs or civil servants, but for a clergyman in Norfolk, a busy housewife in Penge and, with luck, two or three other people'.

* in 1974 produced rich accounts of Prime Minister Edward Heath's doomed progress round Britain as he fought to keep his Government in power in the contest for the February General Election.

What was produced by Simon, the mature journalist ? who :

* in 1981, left 'The Guardian' for 'The Observer', wrote a regular column of disrespectful political comment for 'Punch', contributed to the 'Spectator', wrote for tv on television and wine and became a familiar voice on radio's 'News Quiz', first as a participant and then in the late 1990s, as Chairman.

* memorably described Bernard Ingram, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's  Private Secretary in the 1980s as ' brick-red of face, beetling of brow, seemingly built to withstand hurricanes, Sir Bernard resembled a half-timbered bomb shelter.'
* returned to London in 1989 at the age of 43, became and remained the Observer's Political Editor until 1993, when it was taken over by the Guardian and he was forced to give up the post, later referred to by him, with some bitterness, as "When the Observer sacked me …"

*  rejoined the Guardian as parliamentary sketch writer and remained there for the rest of his working life and where, according to Alan Rushbridger 'his news training stood him in perfect stead for the daily task of noting the key moments of any debate before retiring to write something apparently effortless, piercing and funny – all written in the beautiful spare prose that had been drummed into him in Manchester.'

 * described the Tory MP, Nicholas Soames, at a party conference as : 'Soames was magnificent, a vast, florid spectacle, a massive inflatable frontbench spokesman. You could tow him out to a village fete and charge children 50p to bounce on him. They could have floated him over London to bring down the German bombers.'

* picked on slightest scent of sycophancy and said of new Conservative Member Harriett Baldwin in 2010 : 'I have my eye on Baldwin with her blonde hair and her ability to ask the most grovelling questions, she is rapidly becoming the female Fabricant – or at least Fabricant Mark I, before he stopped crawling and became an elder statesman."
 
* wrote of Bill Clinton at the Labour Party Conference in 2002 : 'The former president was brilliant, dazzling, charismatic, seductive and completely shameless. He wooed them all the time. He didn't stop. He cast his eyes down coyly. Then he raised his head, smiled, and looked slowly round the audience, gazing deep into their eyes. He is the Princess Di of the political world.'

* in books, in collaboration, wrote 'The Pact' in 1978, on the Callaghan-Steel arrangement after Labour lost its majority; 'Michael Foot: A Portrait' in 1981 and in 'Dear Mum' in 2006, the often hair-raising experiences reported by gap-year students in letters home.

* in 'A Long Lunch: My Stories and I'm Sticking to Them' in 2010, wrote about his 40 plus years in journalism and toyed with writing his memoirs but rejected the notion saying his life "had not been eventful enough to fill a book."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rb9aE8brN4

* took part in BBC Radio 4's history of political satire series, 'Cartoons, Lampoons and Buffoons', was a contributor to the 'Grumpy Old Men', wrote for 'Punch' magazine and an occasional column for 'New Humanist' Magazine, was celebrity panelist on the tv antiques quiz show 'Going,Going, Gone' and presented his last edition of  'The News Quiz' in 2006 with : "I'm getting a bit clapped out and jaded and I think that's beginning to show."

* appraised Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader in 2009 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS0iuYq0M2o

*  coined the phrase : 'the law of the ridiculous reverse', which states that : 'if the opposite of a statement is plainly absurd, it was not worth making in the first place', which meant, for example,when a self‑important politician boomed  "Now is not the time for cowardice!", would counter with : "Just when, is the time for cowardice?"
 
Simon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2010 which, by that point, had spread to his spleen and metastasised in his lungs and so was pronounced terminal. With this form of the disease he might have expected to live for five to seven months, but thanks to cutting-edge treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital, managed to fight on for another three and a half years. He proudly considered himself the 'poster boy' of pancreatic cancer treatment and was delighted every time his doctors showed off his stats at medical conferences round the world.

What was produced by Simon, the journalist facing death ? who :

 * brought out a collection of sketches : 'Send Up the Clowns' in 2011 and 'House of Fun' in 2012 and still found that standing in the shadow of his still living a celebrated father, people would say, on introduction : "Hoggart? Are you any relation to Richard?" until it was reported to him that someone in an airport, noting the surname on his father's luggage, had asked him if " he was any relation to Simon ?"

*  made regular references to, the flaxen-haired Tory backbencher, Michael Fabricant and in November last year, described his sporting of a Movember false moustache as making him look like 'a cross between one of the Village People and the evildoer who ties the heiress to the railroad track' and chronicled his rise to political maturity as 'Mickey Fab' who had been 'spray-painted with gravitas'.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/27/prime-ministers-questions-michael-fabricant

* wrote in November last of the latest Government  U-turn with : 'Another day, another U-turn. This is less a government than a dodgem car ride. Sparks fly from the roof. Attendants bellow unintelligibly from the sides. Nominally driving, ministers crash into each other. Sometimes they fling the wheel round and nothing happens.'

*  produced a final parliamentary sketch, in which he likened the Chancellor, George Osborne, to Mr Micawber with : 'In America the president's aides are scratching their heads and wondering how they can create their own British miracle' and David Cameron 'smiled like the Cheshire Cat after a large sherry' with Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, who in response, 'If he had pretended to be any angrier he would have been coughing up his own intestines.'

What was said of him after his death by :

David McKie, in the Guardian :
'Far beyond his family, he leaves a host of disconsolate people, from his closest friends to those whose only acquaintance was through what he wrote and said, who know they have lost a rare, wondrously talented and wholly original man.'

The Guardian Editor, Alan Rusbridger : 'Simon was a terrific reporter and columnist – and a great parliamentary sketchwriter. He wrote with mischief and a sometimes acid eye about the theatre of politics. But he wrote from a position of sophisticated knowledge and respect for parliament. A daily reading of his sketch told you things about the workings of Westminster which no news story could ever convey. He will be much missed by readers and his colleagues'.

Michael Fabricant, butt of his wit in a tweet : 'Such sad news. He teased me mercilessly but always kindly.'

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Britain is a country which remembers its daughter of Wales and Cornwall, Angharad Rees and needs another 68,000 signatures on Maggie Watts e-petition for research into the cancer which killed her

Poldark' was a popular BBC tv series based on the novels od Winston Graham and broadcast in Britain between 1975 and 1977. Ralph, who played George Warleggan in 23 of the 29 episodes, died in 1991 at the age of 51 and Angharad, who played Demelza in 28 episodes, died at the age of 68 in 2102. Pancreatic cancer killed them both before their time.

What you possibly didn't know about Angharad was that she :


*  was born in Edgware, Middlesex in 1944, the daughter of a distinguished Welsh psychiatrist, Linford Rees, originally from the Burry Port, Carmarthenshire, educated at Llanelli Grammar School and a medical student at the Welsh National School of Medicine, and Catherine from the Swansea Valley.

* as a baby at the age of two, moved with the family back to Wales and grew up in Rhiwbina, Cardiff and later went to the independent Commonweal Lodge School in Surrey where she struggled with dyslexia and at 16 went on to study at the Sorbonne for two terms and then won a scholarship to the Rose Bruford Drama College in Kent,

* studied at the University of Madrid and taught English at a psychiatric clinic in the capital before returning to Britain and starting her acting career in repertory theatre in England, appeared in  'Hands of the Ripper' in 1971 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kTEVVMXxM0 and then as 'Gossamer Beynon', alongside Welsh actors Richard Burton and Siân Phillips and with Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O'Toole, in the Dylan Thomas inspired tale of a day in the life of a small, Welsh fishing village, Llareggub, 'Under Milk Wood', in 1972 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01d8l08 followed by Sarah Churchill, the daughter of the Wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, played by Burton in 'The Gathering Storm' tv series in 1974.

* soared to fame in 'Poldark' the BBC's 1975-77 dramatisation of Winston Graham's  novels set in 18th-century Cornwall, playing the fiery servant 'Demelza', whose beautiful smile, wide-open eyes, flowing red locks and headstrong nature won over the brooding hero and helped to attract 15 million viewers in Britain and many more around the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMYp7v3-rBA

* was involved in much location filming as the cameras moved from one evocatively sounding location to the next : Lostwithiel to Botallack, St Just to Braddock, Mount's Bay to Port Quin, Land's End to Bodmin, Lundy Bay to Pendeen, Pentireglaze to Perranporth, Port Isaac Harbour to Porthcurno Beach, Porthluney Cove to Portholland, Portloe to Prussia Cove, River Fowey to St Mawes, St Agnes to Mousehole and St Ives to Newlyn.

* got the news that the villainous banker and land owner in the series, Sir George Warleggan, played by Ralph Bates had died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 51 in 1991.

* played a part along with her brothers and sisters in supporting her father, Linford, after the death of her mother in 1993.

* in 1973, married the actor Christopher Cazenove with whom she had two sons, divorced in 1994 and had to cope with the loss of her eldest son, Linford James, who died at the age of 25, in a car accident in 1999.

* did poetry readings and recited in front of the 14,000 present at the Gala Opening of the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff in 1999 and in the company of Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Sir Harry Secombe, Max Boyce, Shakin' Stevens and Bonnie Tyler and teenage singing star Charlotte Church with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, rounded off by a new anthem for Wales by Karl Jenkins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW5A_Y2ejIM

 * after the end of her marriage, had a relationship with the actor, Alan Bates until 2002, who also suffered from pancreatic cancer when he died from at stroke at the age of 69 in 2003 and who had suffered the loss of his own son years earlier, but turned down his proposals of marriage and said : "We were very close, but it was difficult because I had not yet given way to my grief over the loss of my son."

* renewed her link with Cardiff when she was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

* was appointed CBE in 2004 and the following year, married David McAlpine of the construction family.

* had fellow Welsh actress Ruth Madoc say of her : “Angharad was a lovely, gentle woman and very pretty. Poldark was a landmark series which everyone remembers so well. I knew her very well socially back in London and we worked together from time to time. We did a poetry reading in the Grand Theatre in Swansea about 12 years ago. I haven’t seen her for some time and hadn’t realised she was so ill.”

The cancer which killed Angharad remains the Cinderellas of cancers in comparison with bowel, breast and prostate. Only more funding and public awareness will lead to earlier detection and, ultimately, better survival rates. It is often called the 'silent killer' since many of its symptoms mirror other less critical illnesses and doctors may not recognise these early enough, resulting in lost time before diagnosis and a terminal outcome. It kills 7,900, mostly old men and women in Britain each year with 75% of cases in those aged 65 years and over.

Last year, Maggie Watts, who lost her husband to pancreatic cancer at the age of just 48 in 2009, launched a UK Government E-petition to push it further up the political agenda.
The petition is a call to :
'Provide more funding and awareness for pancreatic cancer to aid long overdue progress in earlier detection and, ultimately, improved survival rates'

Maggie speaking to ITN : http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2014-01-21/pancreatic-cancer-campaign

So, in memory of Angharad, please sign Maggie's petition and spread it to family, friends and colleagues though facebook, twitter and other social media to help her get her 100,000 signatures by April 8th : http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48389

Thursday 13 February 2014

Britain, wet and sodden, is still, but only just, a country for old heroes like Jack Stevenson

Britain's old men have been reminded that they live on islands on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean open to the winds and rain which sweep in from the west, propelled by the jet stream. It has been wet beyond recall. The wettest December and January for 200 years. Rivers have burst their banks, towns and villages flooded. One such village is Wraysbury in Berkshire, close to the River Thames, where 69 year old, Jack Stevenson, a former Concorde cabin manager, has emerged as one of the heroes of the flood, quietly keeping his part of the community glued together and solving problems.

What you possibly didn't know about Jack, that he :

* since his property, an uninsured bungalow, was one of the first to be flooded six days ago, has done everything from lifting a 93-year-old woman from her home, to fetching a much-wanted pack of Carlsberg for a stranded resident.

* has said : "The word biblical keeps coming to mind. This is Berkshire, England, and still there is more to come. In the quiet moments I want to cry and it is quite depressing, but somehow, even though I'm not a teenager, I dig deep and there's another gear."

 * checks on an old couple who have not evacuated their property, 77 year old, Kris Jagden, a retired engineer and his wife, 73 tear old Ranjit, who said : "Jack has helped so much, we wouldn't have managed without him. He's give us moral support and all kinds of help."

Jack's simple acts of keeping people informed and checking on their needs are the very things that locals in Wraysbury have complained that the authorities have been unable to do in recent days. He is an example of a Britain we have almost lost.

Monday 10 February 2014

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to a very old cinematographer called Douglas Slocombe who brightened the lives of old men who saw his films at the pictures when they were boys

Douglas, who is 101 years old today, made 84 feature films over 47 years and old men and women in Britain remember enjoying his black and and white Ealing comedies when they were boys and girls in the 1940's and '50s and taking their own kids to enjoy his 'Indiana Jones' films in the 1980s.

 What you possibly didn't know about Douglas, that he :

* was born in London, just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1913 and was brought up and went to school in Paris, where his father worked as foreign correspondent for the 'Daily Herald' and at the age of 10, met James Joyce when the novelist dropped in to his parents with a signed pre-publication copy of 'Ulysses'.

* had a father who, as a journalist, had interviewed  Hitler and Mussolini and been instrumental in freeing Gandhi from prison and in his book,'Paris in Profile' had written poetically of the 'Louvre crouches like a tiger among the trees' and followed him into the profession after leaving university and joined British United Press in Fleet Street in the mid '30s.

* began his career as a photojournalist and later said : "I had fallen in love with photography and was making a living doing photographic features for publications such as Picture Post, Paris Match and Life magazine. But in 1939 I saw a huge headline which I think was in the Sunday Express. It said: 'Danzig - Danger Point of Europe.' I packed up my Leica, got on a train and went."
* was present and endangered himself with his newsreel camera at a meeting of the Nazi Popaganda Minister : "The Eyemo was heavy and could be noisy. Once I was in an auditorium filming a speech made by Goebbels when suddenly it decided to emit a huge snarling sound. Goebbels froze and hundreds of uniformed Brownshirts turned and glared at me in anger. It was not a comfortable moment."

* later said that he found himself "right in the middle of an absolute hotbed of Nazi intrigue. I remember taking photographs as the local Gauleiter  harangued huge crowds of Germans in the evenings with a big swastika flag in the background and photographed a synagogue which the Nazis had hung a huge banner on. It said 'Komm lieber Mai und mache von Juden uns jetzt frei' - come the lovely month of May, we shall be free of the Jews."

* one evening soon afterwards, noticed the sky over Danzig had turned red from a synagogue on fire and while filming "was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into a cell but the next morning they let me go. After that the city's Polish authorities, who had been helping get my film out, thought it would be a good idea for me to leave."

* was in Warsaw when the German Airforce attacked and later said : "I'd already filmed with the cavalry and knew they were magnificent horsemen. But now we were at a machine-gun post with a WW1 gun screwed to a tree stump guarding a bridge. There were German planes overhead and German artillery heading across Poland it was obvious the Poles were about to be outgunned."
* returning to Britain,worked for the Ministry of Information, shooting newsreels and propaganda films and divided his time between the Fleet Air Arm and Ealing studios, with 'The Big Blockade' with footage shot on Atlantic convoys when he was 30 in 1943 and made his debut as a full-fledged cinematographer in 'Dead of Night' with Michael Redgrave in 1945. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86v2N-GffQM

* after the War gave Ealing's films their unique, realistic look with :

Thumbnail image of Captive Heart, The (1946)  'The Captive Heart' in 1946 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RiN0OoWkvY
A prisoner of war drama, made only a few months after the end of the War.
Thumbnail image of It Always Rains On Sunday (1947)  'It Always Rains On Sunday' in 1947 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4Pkl1JgFM
Robert Hamer's bleak portrait of life in London's East End.
Thumbnail image of Hue and Cry (1947)  'Hue and Cry' in '47 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJxbaymZ7K0
A comedy of a boy's own romp.

Thumbnail image of Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948)
'Saraband for Dead Lovers' in '48 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY77I7sEM6U
Thumbnail image of Whisky Galore! (1949)
Ealing's first Technicolor film, a period drama.

'Whisky Galore' in '49 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBp2ke5Bye4
A comedy about whisky smuggling in the Hebrides.

Thumbnail image of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
'Kind Hearts and Coronets' '49 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AniaXIWKKuc
A dark comedy, featuring no fewer than nine Alec Guinnesses.

'Lavender Hill Mob' in '51 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S61weAUrPg
A group of eccentric Londoners plot the perfect crime

'Man in the White Suit' in '51 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqNBFTEtFlE
Comedy with naïve inventor up against British industry.

'Mandy' in '52 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IUj95fveNg
Portrait of a family struggling to cope with a deaf child.

 'Smallest Show on Earth' in '57 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTMGfDd07gQ
A nostalgic comedy about a couple who inherit a failing cinema.

*  left Ealing and went freelance, not wanting to be tied down to a single studio, and divided his time between Britain and America and went on to win the BAFTA--the British equivalent of the Oscar--three times, for 'The Servant' in 1963
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVWdWOK9zs, 'The Great Gatsby' in 74 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiNE5iYBuHA and 'Julia' in '77. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_u7Hvj14s0

* in 196,6 while filming 'The Blue Max' with things not going well between George Peppard and Ursula after the bed scene, she leapt out of bed as naked as the day she was born and stormed off the set saying : “And the bastard didn’t even get an erection!!” to which Douglas replied, “We all did, Ursula !"

* at the age of 64, became  favourite of director, Steven Spielberg and was responsible for the acclaimed and technically complex photography on his blockbuster, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' in 1977. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYCBgSRNjk0

* while shooting 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in 1981, was noted for never having to use a light meter, that almost indispensable tool for most cinematographers with Harrison Ford later saying that he "just held up his hand and observed the shadow his thumb made on the palm" and in his cinematography, with his use of vibrant colour, managed to be both modern and evocative of the 1930s past of Dr. Jones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-8AP0To4k

* was celebrated for his wit, modesty, generosity and calming influence on the set.

* now lives by the Thames in London with his daughter where, sadly, his near-blindness means he no longer sees a river which long ago featured in black-and-white classics he shot, such as 'Hue and Cry' and 'The Man in the White Suit'.

* in 2009 when he was 96, saw leading figures in British and American cinema take part in a BAFTA tribute to him with Vanessa Redgrave speaking of the "wonderful way" he shot her father as a mad ventriloquist in 'Dead of Night' and the flattering way he lit her and Jane Fonda in Fred Zinnemann's 'Julia' and Glenda Jackson recalled an overhead shot in which he photographed her stark naked on the floor of a rocking Russian train in Ken Russell's 'The Music Lovers' , when after a third take, he dropped on top of her from the luggage rack and said, in his charming stammer: "I'm a m-married m-man."


* received tributes from Richard Attenborough and Alan Parker Parker : http://vimeo.com/22208399
and another on his hundredth birthday : http://bloodymurder.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/douglas-slocombe-100-years-old-today/