Anthony Asquith

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Anthony Asquith (Template:IPAc-en; 9 November 1902 – 20 February 1968) was an English film director. He collaborated successfully with playwright Terence Rattigan on The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version (1951), among other adaptations. His other notable films include Pygmalion (1938), French Without Tears (1940), The Way to the Stars (1945) and a 1952 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Life and career

Born in London on 9 November 1902,<ref name="oxforddictbio"></ref> he was the son of H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, and Margot Asquith, who was responsible for 'Puffin' as his family nickname.<ref name="BFI1">Anthony Asquith biography at BFI Screenonline</ref> He had four siblings, one of whom, a sister named Elizabeth, survived to adulthood; as well as five half-siblings from his father's first marriage.<ref name="oxforddictbio"></ref> He was educated at Eaton House,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford.

The film industry was viewed as disreputable when Asquith was young, and according to the actor Jonathan Cecil, a family friend, Asquith entered this profession in order to escape his background.<ref name="Macnab">Geoffrey Macnab "The Asquith version", The Guardian, 6 February 2003</ref> At the end of the 1920s, he began his career with the direction of four silent films, the last of which, A Cottage on Dartmoor, established his reputation with its meticulous and often emotionally moving frame composition.<ref name="BFI1"/> Pygmalion (1938) was based on the George Bernard Shaw play featuring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller.

He made several films for Edward Black at Gainsborough.<ref name="edward">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Asquith was a longtime friend and colleague of Terence Rattigan (they collaborated on ten films) and producer Anatole de Grunwald. His later films included Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version (1951), and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1952).

Asquith served as President of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians and as a Governor of the British Film Institute.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Asquith was an alcoholic and, according to actor Jonathan Cecil, a repressed homosexual. He was working as director of The Shoes of the Fisherman when he fell ill. He died, months later, of cancer in London on 21 February 1968.<ref name="oxforddictbio">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Macnab"/> He was buried at All Saints Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire, England.<ref name="ODNB">Template:Cite ODNB</ref>

Filmography

File:Channel Incident- the Production of a Ministry of Information Film, UK, September 1940 D1080.jpg
Asquith (centre) directs Peggy Ashcroft and Gordon Harker in Channel Incident, a short film about the evacuation of Dunkirk made for the Ministry of Information in 1940.

Feature film

Short film

References

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