Charles Jarrott (director)

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Charles Jarrott (born June 16, 1927 in London , † March 4, 2011 in Los Angeles ) was a British - Canadian director , screenwriter and actor . After working in the British and Canadian theater, he appeared in the mid-1950s as a director of over 40 film and television productions, mostly dramas. He received the Golden Globe Award for directing the historical film Queen for a Thousand Days (1969) .

Life

Training and directorial debut

Charles Jarrott was born in London in 1927 as the son of the British musical actress Ursula Jean (birth name Borlase) and the British racing driver Charles Jarrott . With the consent of his widowed mother, he served in the Royal Navy in the Far East during World War II . He began his theater career after the war as an "assistant stage manager" with the ensemble of the Great Britain Touring Company . Jarrott later got a job with the Nottingham Repertory , where he was able to gain experience as an actor and director. In 1953 the Briton moved to Canada . There he got an engagement as an actor at the theater of Ottawa . 1955 followed with an insignificant part in the episode The Walking Stick of the television series On Camera (1954-1958), his acting debut on Canadian television . Two years later, Jarrott made an extra appearance in the False Witness episode of the western series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans , before he decided to devote himself entirely to directing.

Charles Jarrott made his debut as a director in the mid-1950s directing television plays for American and British series. In his home country Great Britain he first drew attention to himself with A Shilling for the Evil Day (1959), which was set in the Irish fishing community . The Times of London praised him for his "characteristically flowing and expressive" directorial work, which was broadcast on Associated Television's Armchair Theater , for which he worked several times. He was able to build on this success with further work on independent television, including Dr. Kabil , a political melodrama about an Algerian surgeon, and the thriller Eye Witness with Diana Wynyard as a helpless invalid. In 1960 the Times counted him among the best directors of television drama, but he would have no talent for comedy. Very often women appeared as the main characters in his television works. He worked closely with the Canadian television producer Sydney Newman , who also sponsored such well-known filmmakers as Ken Loach , Dennis Potter and David Mercer .

Success in Hollywood with period films

In 1965 he made his first feature film Tea Party for the BBC , which was based on a screenplay by Harold Pinter and which he directed with Vivien Merchant for British television. After working on the British television series The Wednesday Play (1964–1967), the mystery series Haunted (1967), and the television film The Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968, with Jack Palance in the title role), followed Jarrott's movie debut in 1969. In the historical drama Queen for a Thousand Days , based on a play by Maxwell Anderson , the French-speaking Canadian Geneviève Bujold played the power-striving Anne Boleyn , while Richard Burton as Henry VIII of England played her film husband. The work, produced by Hal B. Wallis , won four Golden Globes despite mixed reviews , including the trophies for best drama of the year and Charles Jarrott for best director . At the following Academy Awards, Jarrott surprisingly received no nomination for best director and also Queen for a thousand days , with ten nominations as a big favorite, could not prevail against John Schlesinger's more popular Asphalt Cowboy . In the same year, the American television film The Male of the Species , which was awarded an Emmy , followed , in which Paul Scofield , Michael Caine , Sean Connery and Laurence Olivier starred.

After Queen's international success for a thousand days , Jarrott worked again with producer Hal B. Wallis, directing the historical epic Mary Queen of Scots for Universal Pictures . With the drama in which Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson mime the rival queens Maria Stuart and Elizabeth of England , Jarrott was able to build on the previous success and the costume drama was nominated for five Golden Globes and the same number of Oscars.

The film career of the British-Canadian director was clouded in 1973 after only three films when he unsuccessfully re-directed Frank Capra's adventure film In the Fetters of Shangri-La (1937) as the musical Lost Horizon with Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann . The over seven million US dollar, two and a half hour film was a failure with audiences and critics and destroyed the career of its producer Ross Hunter , who was responsible for successful Hollywood projects such as Bed Whisper (1959) or the disaster film Airport (1970) . Jarrott was then denied engagements for major film productions.

Only for the Walt Disney Company he could stage from 1976 to 1981 including three feature films, including The little horse thieves (1976) with Alastair Sim in his last film role. The Times called him after the romance film Beyond Midnight (1977, with Susan Sarandon ) and his earlier large-scale productions as a "safe director" , but not as a "creative or exciting" filmmaker. The influential American film critic Pauline Kael saw Jarrott "a man with no style and personality" and limited his artistic activity to that of a "transport manager" (Original: "traffic manager" ).

Television career

Charles Jarrott turned to American and British television in the early 1980s , where he was also successful. In 1987 he made the three- Emmys award-winning television multipart Poor Rich Girl - The Story of Barbara Hutton in which Farrah Fawcett portrayed the extravagantly married and extravagant Woolworth heiress . A year later, the television film The Woman He Loved was made , an elaborate adaptation of Wallis Simpson's affair with the British King Edward VIII , in which Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews played the leading roles. In 1991, the controversial biopic Luci and Desi - A Look Behind the Scenes followed , in which Frances Fisher and Maurice Benard portrayed the film-making couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz . Eleven years after the sports drama Finish - Final Sprint to Victory (1986), in which Nicolas Cage slipped into the role of the Canadian world class rower Ned Handlan (1855–1908), Jarrott appeared in 1997 with the award-winning comedy The Secret Life of Algernon with Carrie- Anne Moss and John Cullum are again responsible for a cinema production. His last directorial work followed in 2001 with the crime drama Turn of Faith , in which Mia Sara and Costas Mandylor played the leading roles.

Charles Jarrott was married three times. The marriage with the British actress and screenwriter Katharine Blake (1928-1991), which he used in many of his television plays and in Queen for a Thousand Days (1969), was divorced . The previous marriage to Rosemary Palin (1949-1957) was also divorced. His third wife Suzanne Bledsoe, whom he married in 1992, died in 2003. Jarrott himself died in 2011 at the age of 83 in the retirement community of Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) . He suffered from prostate cancer .

Filmography

Director (selection)

  • 1962: Diamonds of Death (Scotland Yard accepts the Challenge)
  • 1968: The Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
  • 1969: Queen for a Thousand Days (Anne of the Thousand Days)
  • 1971: Maria Stuart, Queen of Scotland (Mary, Queen of Scots)
  • 1973: The Lost Horizon
  • 1974: The circumnavigation (The Dove)
  • 1976: The Little Horse Thieves (Escape from the Dark)
  • 1977: The Other Side of Midnight
  • 1980: Crash Landing in Paradise (The Last Flight Of Noah's Ark)
  • 1981: Condorman
  • 1981: The Second Man (The Amateur)
  • 1986: Finish - final spurt to victory (The Boy in Blue)
  • 1987: Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story , Movie made for TV
  • 1988: King of Her Heart ( The Woman He Loved , Movie made for TV)
  • 1989: The Champagne Dynasty ( Till We Meet Again , television miniseries)
  • 1990: Night of the Fox (TV movie)
  • 1991: Luci and Desi - A look behind the scenes ( Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter , TV movie)
  • 1991: Under the Rainbow ( Changes , TV movie)
  • 1991: ... and Santa Claus does exist ( Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus , TV movie)
  • 1992: Lady Boss (TV movie)
  • 1993: A Stranger in the Mirror ( A Stranger in the Mirror , TV movie)
  • 1994: Labyrinth of Love ( Treacherous Beauties , TV movie)
  • 1994: Oksana Baiul - The Russian Ice Princess ( A Promise Kept: The Oksana Baiul Story , TV movie)
  • 1995: Love at Midnight ( At the Midnight Hour , TV movie)
  • 1997: The Secret Life of Algernon
  • 1997: Enchanted Christmas ( The Christmas List , TV movie)
  • 2001: Turn of Faith

Screenwriter

  • 1993: Tomorrow morning, God willing ... ( Morning Glory , TV movie)
  • 1997: The Secret Life of Algernon

actor

  • 1955: On Camera (TV series)
  • 1957: Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (TV series)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charles Jarrott. In: Contemporary Theater, Film and Television, Volume 38. Gale Group, 2002 (accessed via Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich .: Gale, 2009.)
  2. ↑ a b c Ronald Bergan: Obituary: Charles Jarrott. In: The Guardian , March 7, 2011, p. 34.
  3. ^ A Shilling For The Evil Day. In: The Times , Nov. 2, 1959, No. 54607, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Maigret Makes Good Viewing. In: The Times , December 7, 1959, No. 54637, p. 14.
  5. ↑ Polished Television Thriller. In: The Times , June 6, 1960, No. 54790, p. 10.
  6. ^ Saucy English Humor A Heart And A Diamond. In: The Times , September 19, 1960, No. 54880, p. 4.
  7. ↑ Unswerving Honesty Marks a Story of Women. In: The Times , May 27, 1963, No. 55711, p. 8.
  8. ↑ David Robinson: Something to be said for the women's picture. In: The Times , Sep 9, 1977, No. 60104, p. 11, The Other Side of Midnight.
  9. ↑ quoted from Filmfacts. (Vol. 16-20), American Film Institute , Center for Understanding Media, University of Southern California. Division of Cinema, 1977.
  10. ↑ Katharine Blake. In: The Times , March 5, 1991, Features.
  11. ↑ Passings: Charles Jarrott. at latimes.com, March 4, 2011, accessed March 4, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Jarrott, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Canadian director
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England , UK
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 2011
Place of death Los Angeles , United States