Michael Apted

Michael David Apted (10 February 1941 – 7 January 2021) was an English television and film director and producer.

Apted began working in television and directed the Up documentary series from 1970 to 2019. He later directed Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Nell (1994), the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Enigma (2001). His film Amazing Grace (2006) premiered at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival that year.

On 29 June 2003, he was elected president of the Directors Guild of America, a position he served until 2009.

Life and career Early years and education Apted was born on 10 February 1941 at Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital in Aylesbury, the son of Frances Amelia (née Thomas) and Ronald William Apted. He was educated at City of London School and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied law and history.

Television Apted began his career in television as a trainee for six months at Granada Television in Manchester, where he worked as a researcher. Though originally conceived as a one-off documentary, the series has become an institution. When it was suggested that they revisit the subjects at ages fourteen and twenty one, Apted accepted the offer to direct and directed every subsequent episode in the series. looking at how they develop during their lives, compared to when they were seven. The series looks at the lives of these people over the years; the latest instalment, 63 Up, was produced in 2019. It won a Peabody Award in 2012 "for its creator’s patience and its subjects' humanity."

During his seven-year period of working at Granada, Apted also directed a number of episodes of Coronation Street, and The Lovers. They worked together again in 1982 for the TV movie P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang, the first film commissioned by Britain's Channel 4. In 1976 Apted directed a play in the Granada TV series Laurence Olivier Presents. The episode was The Collection by Harold Pinter. The play starred Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren.

Apted used his idea from the Up series a second time in Married in America and Married in America 2. The idea was to interview nine married couples every two years over a ten-year period to tell a more complete story of their marriages. In 2005, he directed the first three episodes of the TV series Rome.

For his work in television, Apted won several British Academy Awards, including two Flaherty Documentary Awards for his work on 28 Up and 35 Up and a BAFTA for Best Dramatic Director for the single play Kisses at Fifty in 1974.

Film Apted made his first feature film in 1972, The Triple Echo, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, and he directed two films for David Puttnam. The Triple Echo was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. He alternated this work with working on the TV series Play for Today. He directed six plays including Stronger than the Sun, written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Francesca Annis as a young woman who places her life in danger to expose a crime, a theme Apted returned to several times. He went to the United States in 1980, where he directed Coal Miner's Daughter, Both Spacek and Loretta Lynn, the subject of the film, have said that they believe Apted's outsider point of view was crucial to the movie's success in securing the participation of Appalachian residents and to the avoidance of stereotypes that previously had marred portrayals of mountain culture. In 2019, Coal Miner's Daughter was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Apted also made several films with a strong social message or that deal with an ethical dilemma. In 1983 he directed Gorky Park, a political thriller based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, that deals with police corruption in the former Soviet Union. Class Action deals with a corporate whistleblower, and Extreme Measures is about medical ethics. Class Action was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.

In 1994, he directed Nell, which received three Golden Globe Award nominations and one Academy Award nomination.

In 1999, Apted directed the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

Documentary In addition to the Up series, Apted made other documentaries, including Bring On the Night, a feature-length concert film about the making of Sting's first solo album. He directed the documentary The Long Way Home, which was released in 1989. It chronicled the UK, US and USSR adventures of Boris Grebenshchikov, the first Soviet underground musician allowed to record in the West.

Before the making of Thunderheart, Apted made the documentary Incident at Oglala about Leonard Peltier. Incident at Oglala then informed Thunderheart in the casting of actors for the fiction film.

In 1997, he explored the creative process in Inspirations through candid discussion with seven artists from diverse media, including David Bowie, Louise Lecavalier and Roy Lichtenstein among others.

In a departure from his earlier work, from 1992 to 1994, Apted ventured into China's rapidly changing popular culture. In a project backed by Trudie Styler, Apted directed Moving the Mountain, a feature documentary which probed the origins of the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square and the consequences of the movement in the lives of several of the movement's student leaders.

In 2006, Apted co-directed The Official Film of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, narrated by Pierce Brosnan.

Apted was the collaborator and subject of the documentary: Michael Apted – Visions on Film, by artist and filmmaker Melinda Camber Porter.

Theatre In 1977, Apted directed the premiere of Strawberry Fields at the National Theatre in London.

Other activities He served as president of the Directors Guild of America from 2003 to 2009 and served as the secretary-treasurer from 2011 to his death.

Personal life Apted's first marriage was to Jo Proctor in 1966, with whom he had two sons, including Paul Apted. After that marriage ended in divorce, he married Dana Stevens in 1998, before they divorced in 2009. In 2007 Apted became a father for the fourth time, to a girl, who lives with her mother Tania Mellis.

Apted's health started to decline shortly after the completion of 63 Up, and he died at his home in Los Angeles on 7 January 2021, at the age of 79.

Filmography Film

The Triple Echo (2006) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) Chasing Mavericks (2012) Unlocked (2017)

Documentary film Year Title Director Producer Writer 1970 7 Plus Seven 1977 21 Up 1984 28 Up 1985 Bring On the Night 1991 35 Up 1992 Incident at Oglala 1994 Moving the Mountain 1997 Inspirations 1998 42 Up 1999 Me & Isaac Newton 2005 49 Up 2007 The Power of the Game 2012 56 Up 2014 Bending the Light 2019 63 Up

Television Year Title Director Producer Notes Ref. 1966–1967 Coronation Street 21 episodes 1967 Escape Episode "A Bad Risk" Haunted 1967–1968 City '68 5 episodes 1968–1972 Playhouse 11 episodes 1969 Big Breadwinner Hog 2 episodes Parkin's Patch 8 episodes Follyfoot 2 episodes 1972 Thirty-Minute Theatre Episode "Said the Preacher" 1972–1976 Play for Today 6 episodes 1976 Great Performances Episode "The Collection" Plays for Britain Episode "Paradise Run" 1982–1985 First Love 1991 My Life and Times 2 episodes 1995 New York News Episode "Pilot" 2017 Bloodline "Part 30"

TV movies Joy (1972) Haunted: Poor Girl (1974) P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang (1982) Always Outnumbered (1998) Nathan Dixon (1999) Hallelujah (2011)

Documentary film The Long Way Home (1989) Married in America (2003) Married in America 2 (2006)

Up series Year Title Director Producer 1970 7 Plus Seven 1977 21 Up 1984 28 Up 1991 35 Up Age 7 in America 1998 14 Up in America 42 Up 2005 49 Up 2006 21 Up America 2012 56 Up 2019 63 Up

Awards and nominations