Tony Richardson

Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and Academy Award-winning film director and producer.

Early life

Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans (Campion) and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist.^[1] He attended Ashville College, Harrogate and Wadham College, Oxford.

Career

Representative of the British "New Wave" of directors, he developed the ideas that led to the formation of the English Stage Company, along with his close friend George Goetschius and George Devine. He directed John Osborne's seminal play Look Back in Anger at the Court, writing both the theatre and playwright into British theatrical history. In the same period he directed Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon.

In 1959, Richardson co-founded Woodfall Films with John Osborne, and, as Woodfall's debut, directed the film version of Look Back in Anger despite having no track record in making feature films (he had, however, been a pioneer in Britain's Free Cinema movement; co-directing the non-fiction short Momma Don't Allow with Karel Reisz in 1955). Richardson and Osborne eventually fell out^[2] during production of the film Charge of the Light Brigade.

In 1964 Richardson received two Academy Awards (Best Director and Best Picture) for Tom Jones (1963). Richardson later began work on Mahogany (1975), starring Diana Ross, but was fired by Motown head Berry Gordy shortly after production began. Gordy took over direction himself.

Personal life

He was married to actress Vanessa Redgrave from 1962 and 1967. The couple had two daughters, Natasha Richardson (1963-2009) and Joely Richardson (born 1965), both actresses. He split with Redgrave for actress Jeanne Moreau.

Richardson was bisexual, but he never acknowledged it publicly until after he acquired AIDS. He died of complications from AIDS at age 63 in 1991.^[3]

Filmography

• Momma Don't Allow (with Karel Reisz; 1955)
• Look Back in Anger (1958)
• The Entertainer (1960)
• Sanctuary (1961)
• A Taste of Honey (1961)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (aka Rebel with a Cause) (1962)
• Tom Jones (1963)
• The Loved One (1965)
• Mademoiselle (1966)
• Red and Blue (1967)
• The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967)
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
• Laughter in the Dark (1969)
• Hamlet (1969)
• Nijinsky (unfinished film; 1970)
• Ned Kelly (1970)
• A Delicate Balance (1973)
• Dead Cert (1974)
• Mahogany (uncredited; 1975)
• Joseph Andrews (1977)
• A Death in Canaan (1978)
• The Border (1982)
• The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
• The Penalty Phase (1986)
• Beryl Markham: A Shadow on the Sun (1988)
• Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (with Frederic Raphael and Ken Russell; 1990)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1990)
• Blue Sky (1994)

References

External links

• Tony Richardson at the Internet Movie Database
• BFI: Tony Richardson
• Tony Richardson at Find A Grave