Richard Attenborough - # 89

Richard Attenborough, Director of ‘Gandhi,’ Dies at 90

He was number 89 on the list.

Richard Attenborough, the U.K. movie director who chronicled the end of British colonial rule in India with his Oscar-winning epic "Gandhi" and performed in more than 50 films, has died. He was 90.

The director died at about lunchtime yesterday, BBC News reported on its website, citing his son, Michael Attenborough. The family is expected to release a full statement today, BBC reported. He would have turned 91 this week.

Attenborough, who was knighted in 1976, acted in 45 movies before he turned to directing. His 1982 cinematic tale about Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi won eight Academy Awards, including ones for directing and best picture. They were the only Oscars he would win in his six-decade career.

The brother of David Attenborough, the naturalist and television-documentary maker, made his directorial debut in 1969 with a film based on the musical "Oh! What a Lovely War." He followed up with "Young Winston" (1972), a biography of Winston Churchill's early years, and with World War II drama "A Bridge Too Far" (1977). None of those movies stirred the passions that accompanied his 20-year battle to make a film about Gandhi, the charismatic Indian leader who espoused nonviolent resistance -- and was murdered in 1948 soon after gaining his country's independence.

In 1962, Attenborough met an Indian official in London who urged him to make a film about Gandhi. Aware that Hollywood director Otto Preminger and U.K. filmmaker David Lean had tried and failed to make a movie on the same topic, Attenborough was wary about the project.

Though he knew Gandhi had been assassinated, Attenborough was "utterly ignorant as to where he was born, where he had lived or the kind of life he had led," the filmmaker wrote in "In Search of Gandhi" (1982).

Nonetheless, he was hooked. In the next two decades, he made many trips to India, winning the approval of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi for the project. He gained financing promises from U.K. and Hollywood studios, independent producers and even an Indian maharajah on the strength of scripts by well-known screenwriters.

All his efforts came to nothing. In the late 1970s, he was nudged aside when director Lean said he wanted to make the movie.

At the last moment, Lean and his would-be scriptwriter backed out and Attenborough was approached again. This time, the stars were favorably aligned: Financial backers came through and he managed to cut the five-hour shooting script to 191 minutes.

After years of struggle, shooting began on Nov. 26, 1980, in India and ended 121 days later. The star-studded film -- featuring Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, John Mills and Martin Sheen -- even came in on budget at $22 million.

Attenborough produced and directed about a dozen movies, though only "Gandhi" was ever nominated for an Academy Award. In addition to Attenborough's two Oscars, Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Gandhi. The film also collected Oscars for cinematography, screenplay, editing, costumes and art direction.

Richard Samuel Attenborough was born on Aug. 29, 1923, in Cambridge, England, the eldest of three sons. To the distress of his father, a university professor, Attenborough bypassed college to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, graduating in 1942.

He showed talent as a drama student, winning the part of a deserting seaman in Noel Coward's film "In Which We Serve" in 1942. He was cast as a hoodlum in "Brighton Rock," a Graham Greene play, reprising the role in the film version in 1947.

While studying at RADA, he met actress Sheila Sim, whom he married in 1945. They starred together in the original cast of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," a murder mystery that opened in 1952 and is still playing in London.

As an actor, Attenborough showed a deft touch in "Private's Progress" (1956), in which he played a scam artist, and in the satire "I'm All Right, Jack" (1959), which starred Peter Sellers.

He also appeared in "The Great Escape" (1963), "The Sand Pebbles" (1966), "Doctor Doolittle" (1967) and in two of Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" movies.

Though he received some of his best reviews as serial killer John Christie in "10 Rillington Place" (1971), his acting career tailed off with his growing involvement in producing and directing.

By then, he had produced "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961) and "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" (1964). After "Gandhi," he went on to direct "Cry Freedom" (1987) -- the story of the murdered South African civil-rights activist Steve Biko -- and "Chaplin" (1992), starring Robert Downey Jr.

Attenborough served as chairman of the British Film Institute from 1981 to 1992.

He is survived by his wife and son Michael, a theater director, and daughter Charlotte, an actress. Daughter Jane Holland died in a 2004 tsunami while traveling in Thailand. Attenborough had been in a nursing home with his wife for a number of years, BBC reported yesterday.

Filmography

Year       Title       Producer              Director                Actor     Role       Notes

1942      In Which We Serve                                          Yes         A young stoker Uncredited

1943      Schweik's New Adventures                                          Yes         Railway worker

1944      The Hundred Pound Window                                      Yes         Tommy Draper

1945      Journey Together                                             Yes         David Wilton     

1946      A Matter of Life and Death                                           Yes         An English pilot

1946      School for Secrets                                            Yes         Jack Arnold        

1947      The Man Within                                                Yes         Francis Andrews              

1947      Dancing with Crime                                         Yes         Ted Peters         

1948      Brighton Rock                                    Yes         Pinkie Brown     

1948      London Belongs to Me                                   Yes         Percy Boon        

1948      The Guinea Pig                                  Yes         Jack Read            

1949      The Lost People                                                Yes         Jan        

1949      Boys in Brown                                    Yes         Jackie Knowles

1950      Morning Departure                                         Yes         Stoker Snipe      

1951      Hell Is Sold Out                                  Yes         Pierre Bonnet   

1951      The Magic Box                                   Yes         Jack Carter         

1952      Gift Horse                                            Yes         Dripper Daniels

1952      Father's Doing Fine                                          Yes         Dougall                

1954      Eight O'Clock Walk                                           Yes         Thomas "Tom" Leslie Manning  

1955      The Ship That Died of Shame                                       Yes         George Hoskins                

1956      Private's Progress                                             Yes         Pvt. Percival Henry Cox

1956      The Baby and the Battleship                                        Yes         Knocker White

1957      Brothers in Law                                                 Yes         Henry Marshall

1957      The Scamp                                          Yes         Stephen Leigh   

1958      Dunkirk                                                Yes         John Holden      

1958      The Man Upstairs                                             Yes         Peter Watson    

1958      Sea of Sand                                         Yes         Brody   

1959      Danger Within                                   Yes         Capt. "Bunter" Phillips   

1959      I'm All Right Jack                                               Yes         Sidney De Vere Cox        

1959      Jet Storm                                             Yes         Ernest Tiller       

1959      SOS Pacific                                          Yes         Whitney Mullen               

1960      The Angry Silence             Yes                         Yes         Tom Curtis         

1961      Whistle Down the Wind                Yes                                                        

1960      The League of Gentlemen                                            Yes         Lexy      

1960      Upgreen – And at 'Em                                    Yes                        

1962      Only Two Can Play                                           Yes         Gareth L. Probert            

1962      The L-Shaped Room        Yes                                                        

1962      All Night Long                                    Yes         Rod Hamilton    

1962      The Dock Brief aka Trial and Error                                             Yes         Herbert Fowle  

1963      The Great Escape                                             Yes         Sqn. Ldr. Roger Bartlett "Big X"  

1964      The Third Secret                                               Yes         Alfred Price-Gorham      

1964      Séance on a Wet Afternoon         Yes                         Yes         Billy Savage        

1964      Guns at Batasi                                    Yes         Regimental Sgt. Major Lauderdale           

1965      The Flight of the Phoenix                                              Yes         Lew Moran        

1966      The Sand Pebbles                                             Yes         Frenchy Burgoyne           

1967      Doctor Dolittle                                  Yes         Albert Blossom

1968      Only When I Larf                                               Yes         Silas      

1968      The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom                                             Yes         Robert Blossom               

1969      The Magic Christian                                         Yes         Oxford coach    

1969      Oh! What a Lovely War Yes         Yes                                        

1970      The Last Grenade                                             Yes         Gen. Charles Whiteley   

1970      Loot                                       Yes         Inspector Truscott           

1970      A Severed Head                                                Yes         Palmer Anderson            

1971      10 Rillington Place                                           Yes         John Christie     

1972      Cup Glory                                            Yes         Narrator              

1972      Young Winston Yes         Yes                                        

1974      And Then There Were None                                        Yes         Judge Arthur Cannon     

1975      Brannigan                                            Yes         Cmdr. Sir Charles Swann              

1975      Rosebud                                              Yes         Edward Sloat     

1975      Conduct Unbecoming                                     Yes         Maj. Lionel E. Roach       

1977      Shatranj Ke Khilari                                            Yes         Lt. General Outram         

1977      A Bridge Too Far                               Yes         Yes         Lunatic wearing glasses Uncredited

1978      Magic                    Yes                                        

1979      The Human Factor                                           Yes         Col. John Daintry             

1982      Gandhi Yes         Yes                                        

1985      A Chorus Line                     Yes                                        

1987      Cry Freedom      Yes         Yes                                        

1992      Chaplin                 Yes         Yes                                        

1993      Jurassic Park                                       Yes         John Hammond                

1993      Shadowlands     Yes         Yes                                        

1994      Miracle on 34th Street                                   Yes         Kris Kringle         

1996      E=mc2                                   Yes         The Visitor         

1996      Hamlet                                 Yes         English Ambassador to Denmark              

1996      In Love and War                Yes         Yes                                        

1997      The Lost World: Jurassic Park                                      Yes         John Hammond                

1998      Elizabeth                                              Yes         Sir William Cecil               

1999      Grey Owl             Yes         Yes                                        

1999      Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat                                           Yes         Jacob   

2002      Puckoon                                               Yes         Narrator               (final film role)

2007      Closing the Ring                Yes         Yes                                        

2015      Jurassic World                                   Yes         John Hammond                 (posthumous appearance – archive audio only)