Norman Spencer

Norman Leslie Spencer (13 August 1914 – 16 August 2024) was a British film producer, production manager, screenwriter, and supercentenarian. He collaborated with director David Lean during the 1940s and '50s.

Early life Spencer was born in Stockwell, London, on 13 August 1914, and grew up in Billericay and Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. When he was fourteen, he started working as a painter, first on film posters, and later murals. and later co-scripted and co-produced Lean's film of Harold Brighouse's play Hobson's Choice (1954). Lean's first casting suggestion for the lead role was Welsh-born Roger Livesey, but Spencer convinced him to cast Charles Laughton instead, later explaining: "Laughton was a Yorkshireman and he would be playing a Lancastrian, so you'd get regional accuracy, more or less, with international casting. And I thought it needed that size of character." Spencer's last producing credit for Lean was Summertime (1955), which, according to Spencer, Lean was asked to direct by producer Alexander Korda. Spencer later collaborated with Lean on a re-write of the script for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) leading up to the film's production, after Lean was unhappy with the one Carl Foreman had written. Foreman was later asked to re-write the script by the film's producer Sam Spiegel. Spencer worked again for Lean on the Moroccan shoot for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Richard Attenborough's film Cry Freedom (1987).

In 2009 Spencer was living in Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time of his death, he was reported to have been the second-oldest man in the country.