Michael Dryhurst

Michael John Dryhurst (March 22, 1938 – September 9, 2025) was a British-born American film producer, director, assistant director, second unit director, and author known for his work on the films Superman, Excalibur, Never Say Never Again, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, and Hudson Hawk. He was the son of film director and producer Edward Dryhurst, worked on many films by filmmaker John Boorman, and wrote the novel Check the Gate! in 2022. In 1988, he was the co-recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his work as a producer of the film Hope and Glory. He mostly retired from working on films in 1991, and spent his retirement in Ireland and America. a film director and producer, and May Roberts, who had been a screen extra, and had a brother named Christopher and in 1955, at the age of 17, after his father had gotten into too much debt to pay for his school anymore, Michael himself entered the film industry as a clapper loader

Michael was an early figure in bus preservation in the United Kingdom, first owning a share of a preserved bus in 1959 before owning a car. In 1965, Michael bought a 1939 Brighton Corporation Weymann bodied AEC Regent I double-decker bus, registered FUF 63 and given Brighton Corporation fleet number 63, for restoration as one of the first double-decker buses bought for preservation by a private individual. Michael kept FUF 63 until he moved to America, where he decided to work primarily in the film industry. Throughout his life, he purchased six other buses from around the world, with his most notable purchase being that of 1939 London Transport AEC Regent III RT prototype RT1 (registered EYK 396), which he had repatriated to the United Kingdom in 1986 for preservation by the London Bus Museum.

Career

Assistant director (1964 - 1980) In the 1960s Dryhurst began working as second assistant director on several low-budget British films, and still going uncredited. In 1966 he began working as a first assistant director,

He then worked on Boorman's personal film Hope and Glory, playing a similar role in production. The film was critically acclaimed They lived in Ireland for a while before settling in California.

In columns for Buses, he made UK-based enthusiasts aware of the existence of former London Transport AEC Regent III RTs and an RTL-type Leyland Titan, numbered RTL1014 and originally registered KYY 712, run by Unitrans at the University of California, Davis. Michael made friends with Liverpudlian expat and Unitrans fleet engineer Wally Mellor, who later gave him right of first refusal of ownership of RTL1014 in 2014 after it was withdrawn from the Unitrans fleet for failing California emission standards; unable to take ownership of it for himself while living in Ireland at the age of 73, Michael instead was responsible for the repatriation of RTL1014 back to the United Kingdom for continued operation and preservation by the Newman family, then the owners of bus dealership and exporter Ensignbus of Purfleet.

Michael and Karen eventually settled in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. In 2022 he published his first and only novel, Check the Gate! Movie-Making in the Amazon While Dodging Alligators in Hollywood, which is a fictionalized re-telling of his experiences making The Emerald Forest, centering around a film producer making a film in the Amazon who accidentally gets involved with a drug cartel. He also wrote at least two books about the history of London buses and trams. He died on September 9, 2025, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at the age of 87. His funeral was held in Hot Springs Village at Caruth Village Funeral Home on September 19, 2025.

Filmography