William Fairchild

William EC Fairchild (born June 1, 1918 in Boscastle , Cornwall , United Kingdom , † May 9, 2000 in London ) was a British writer (plays and novels) and screenwriter with occasional excursions to directing .

Live and act

Fairchild received military training at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in the second half of the 1930s and was drafted into the Royal Navy immediately after the outbreak of war in 1939 . During his military service, Fairchild has already published over 50 short stories and the instruction book “A Matter of Duty” . Back in civil life, William Fairchild switched to the film industry in 1947. Initially he supplied C-films to the tiny Highbury Studios with his manuscripts before he had a big hit in 1951 with the script for Carol Reed's East Asian drama The Damned of the Isles (based on a model by Joseph Conrad ). Subsequently, the assignments for Fairchild became somewhat more demanding, and in 1955 he was even allowed to direct the romance In Love with a Queen for the first time. This film was a considerable success and earned its maker, Fairchild, the award for Best Young Director at the Venice International Film Festival . In addition, John and Julie , so the original title, was also nominated for the Golden Lion .

Despite the early successes, Fairchild's work in film and television remained rather eclectic in nature. He focused on his literary work, which was performed on several stages (including Do Not Disturb (1959), The Sound of Murder (1960), Breaking Point (1963), Poor Horace (1970) and The Pay-Off (1974) )) and every now and then, like the Doris Day fun game Please do not disturb! and The Sound of Murder , which was also made into a film. In 1967, Fairchild wrote the manuscript for the three-hour Hollywood film Star! about the life of the British stage actress Gertrude Lawrence . Although the ambitious large-scale project was a mega-flop, Fairchild was nonetheless nominated for the WGA Award in 1969 . This was followed by a few routine television assignments and neglected screenplays for thrillers such as At the Gate to Freedom Lies the Death Certificate and The Mackintosh Man . With the film Invitation to a Wedding , which featured three prestigious British stage stars , William Fairchild ended his work for the big screen. Fairchild has also appeared as a novelist ( The Swiss Arrangement (1973) and No Man's Land (1988)).

Filmography

As a screenwriter unless otherwise stated

• 1948: A Song for Tomorrow
• 1948: Colonel Bogey
• 1949: Badger's Green
• 1950: The night began in the morning (Morning Departure)
• 1951: The Outcast of the Islands (Outcast of the Islands)
• 1952: A meal for the fish (Gift Horse)
• 1953: The Net
• 1953: Malta Story
• 1954: Front Page Story
• 1954: Demons of the South Seas (The Seekers)
• 1954: A woman comes on board (Passage Home)
• 1955: In Love with a Queen (John and Julie) (also director, author)
• 1955: Better rich, but happy (Value for Money)
• 1956: No Man's Land (Fensefilm, also book template)
• 1956: The Extra Day (also director)
• 1957: Froschmann Crabb (The Silent Enemy) (also director)
• 1959: The Four Just Me (TV series, also director)
• 1961: The Horsemasters (two-part TV series, also director)
• 1965: 199 Park Lane (TV series)
• 1968: Star!
• 1971: The death certificate (Embassy) is at the gateway to freedom
• 1972: The Darwin Adventure
• 1972: The Mackintosh Man (The Mackintosh Man) (uncredited)
• 1974: Fallen Angels (TV movie)
• 1982: The Sound of Murder
• 1983: Invitation to the Wedding (WP: 1985)

literature

• International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, Quigley Publishing Company, New York 1964, p. 84
• International Motion Picture Almanac 2001, Quigley Publishing Company, Larchmont, New York 2001, p. 152

Individual evidence

1. ↑ according to the British Film Institute. The IMDb calls January 6th

Web links

• William Fairchild in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Fairchild in the British Film Institute database