Lindsay Doran

Lindsay Doran (born 22 June 1948)

Early life Much of Doran's family has worked in the Hollywood film industry. She was born to D. A. Doran, a 55-year-old veteran Hollywood executive producer. Her mother, Marion Avery, began her career in film as a script typewriter for Preston Sturges before marrying D.A., and later became head of the play department at Columbia Pictures. Doran also has a brother, Daniel, a publicist whose work includes the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. She recalled, "[Film] was all around me and what I saw was people who loved it and people who did not have to compromise who they were to be successful in the movie business."

In 1967 Doran began attending Barnard College, an all-women liberal arts college in New York City. There, she studied English literature but due to financial constraints she transferred after her first year to University of California, Los Angeles. Following three semesters, Doran then transferred to University of California, Santa Cruz, taking "courses in dance, art history, music and architecture." Her early work as a studio executive at Paramount saw her supervising five films simultaneously. She stated that it was "a 12-hour-a-day job. It was difficult to get involved on a line-by-line basis in a screenplay and I did it anyway because that's what I love to do." making her the only person to have won an Oscar for both her writing and acting (Thompson won the Best Actress award for Howards End, in 1993). Along with producing, Doran had a small cameo in the film as a maid.

In 1996 Doran ended her partnership with Pollack, citing a need for change, and was quickly hired as the new president and chief operating officer of small studio United Artists, replacing John Calley. There, Thompson approached her with a proposal to adapt the stories of Nurse Matilda into film, with Thompson starring. She and Doran proceeded to work on the adaptation for "a good seven years" and released Nanny McPhee two years later, in 2005. Doran noted that MGM, owner of United Artists, "didn't want to make the movie and didn't believe in it. A lot of people wanted to do it and Working Title came to us and were interested in working with Emma and with Kirk Jones who was attached as the director so they were willing to put up the money through Universal so we made the movie that way." They released its sequel, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, in 2010. Other films Doran oversaw included Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Ronin, and The Thomas Crown Affair.