Anthony Harvey

Anthony Harvey (3 June 1930 – 23 November 2017) was an English filmmaker who began his career as a teenage actor, was a film editor in the 1950s, and moved into directing in the mid-1960s. Harvey had fifteen film credits as an editor, and he directed thirteen films, the second of which, The Lion in Winter, earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Harvey's career is also notable for his recurring work with a number of leading actors and directors including Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough, Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston, Nick Nolte, the Boulting Brothers, Anthony Asquith, Bryan Forbes and Stanley Kubrick. He died in November 2017 at the age of 87.

Biography Harvey was born in London in 1930. His father died when he was young and he was raised and took his name from his stepfather, actor and writer Morris Harvey. in the film version of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), where he recalled that he was "looked after" by star Claude Rains. Harvey gained a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but, although he worked for a time in repertory theatre, realised that he was not likely to be successful as an actor and decided to move into film-making.

The following year Harvey reunited with Liv Ullmann for the romantic drama Richard's Things (which also featured British actress Amanda Redman) and in 1981 he directed the American sequences of The Patricia Neal Story, a tele-movie starring Glenda Jackson which detailed the real-life struggles faced by Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, who at the height of her career had a devastating stroke which left her unable to speak, and the efforts of her then-husband Roald Dahl (played by Dirk Bogarde) and their friends and family to help her recover.

Harvey directed another American tele-movie, Svengali (1983) which was based on the 1894 George du Maurier novel Trilby; it starred Peter O'Toole as an ageing singer who discovers and nurtures a new talent (Jodie Foster) with whom he becomes romantically involved but whom he seeks to completely control.

Harvey's last cinema film was another offbeat black comedy, Grace Quigley (1984), which reunited him with Katharine Hepburn (making her final top-billed role in a feature film). The story concerns an elderly New York woman who witnesses a murder committed by a top hit-man (Nick Nolte), whom she then blackmails into killing some of her friends.

After a ten-year interval, Harvey returned to direct the romantic comedy television movie This Can't Be Love (1994). This was to be both Harvey's last film and the last of his four collaborations with Katharine Hepburn, and it was also the only time that Hepburn ever worked on screen with the film's co-star Anthony Quinn. The plot concerns the romantic travails of a former glamour movie-star couple who had a brief, stormy marriage in the 1940s, who reunite decades later to find that their relationship is as difficult as ever. Harvey though remained in Hepburn's high regard, and was one of the few colleagues she remained in contact with near the end of her life. "A real English gentleman and a brilliant director, one of the best I've ever worked with", she told Ronald Bergan in 2001.

Harvey moved to Long Island in the 1990s and he died there on 23 November 2017, aged 87.

Awards Nominee, Best Director - Academy Awards (The Lion in Winter) Nominee, Best Director - Golden Globes (The Lion in Winter) Winner, Best Director - Directors Guild of America (The Lion in Winter) Nominee, Best Director-TV Movie - Directors Guild of America (The Glass Menagerie) Nominee, Golden Lion - Venice Film Festival (Dutchman) Nominee, Golden Lion - Venice Film Festival (Richard's Things) Nominee, Best Director-TV Movie - Directors Guild of America (The Patricia Neal Story) Nominee, Golden Hugo (Best Picture) - Chicago International Film Festival (Grace Quigley)

Selected filmography A Glimpse of Tiger began production in 1971, before being abandoned. Editing The director of each film is indicated in parentheses. Private's Progress (Boulting, 1956) Tread Softly Stranger (Parry, 1958) I'm All Right Jack (Boulting, 1959) The Millionairess (Asquith, 1960) The Angry Silence (Green, 1960) The L-Shaped Room (Forbes, 1962) Lolita (Kubrick, 1962) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Ritt, 1965) The Whisperers (Forbes, 1967) Dutchman (1967)

Directing Dutchman (1966) The Lion in Winter (1968) They Might Be Giants (1971) The Glass Menagerie (1973, TV) The Abdication (1974) The Disappearance of Aimee (1976, TV) Eagle's Wing (1979) Players (1979) Richard's Things (1980) Svengali (1983, TV) Grace Quigley (1985) This Can't Be Love (1994, TV)