Bryan Forbes

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox person Bryan Forbes CBE (Template:IPAc-en; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"<ref name=Falk>Falk Q.{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> and "one of the most important figures in the British film industry".<ref name=guardian_batty>Batty D. Bryan Forbes, acclaimed film director, dies aged 86 Template:Webarchive. The Guardian. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref>

Forbes directed the film The Stepford Wives (1975) and wrote and/or directed several other critically acclaimed films, including Whistle Down the Wind (1961), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and King Rat (1965). He also scripted several films directed by others, such as The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Only Two Can Play (1962).

Early life

Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926<ref name="bbc_20040612">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=nytimes /> in Queen Mary's Hospital,<ref name="ODNB">Template:Cite ODNB</ref> Stratford, West Ham, London. His father was a salesman and he grew up at 43 Cranmer Road, Forest Gate, where he was a pupil at West Ham Secondary School. During the Second World War he was evacuated twice, first to Lincolnshire – where he attended Horncastle Grammar School – and then to Porthleven in Cornwall, where he was looked after by the vicar Canon Edward Thornton Gotto and his wife.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A schoolfriend at West Ham was artist Albert Herbert.<ref>Macdonald R. Albert Herbert: A visionary artist, he found a path from abstraction to religious imagery via etching. The Guardian. 11 June 2008. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> Lionel Gamlin of the BBC took him on as the host of Junior Brains Trust, and invented Clarke's pseudonym of Bryan Forbes.<ref name="Tel o" />

Career

Actor and screenwriter

Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from age 17, but completed only three terms.<ref name=bfi /><ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /> He completed four years of military service in the Intelligence Corps and Combined Forces Entertainment Unit, during which time he started to write short stories.<ref name=bfi /><ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /> After completing his military service in 1948, following British Equity rules, he was obliged to change his name to avoid confusion with actor John Clark.<ref name=guardian_barker /> Forbes began to act, appearing on stage and playing numerous supporting roles in British films, in particular An Inspector Calls (1954) and The Colditz Story (1955).<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name="bbc_20040612" /><ref name=bbc />

He published a short story collection in the early 1950s, which induced producer "Cubby" Broccoli to offer him screenwriting work on The Black Knight (1954).<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /> He received his first credit for Second World War film The Cockleshell Heroes (1955),<ref name=nytimes /><ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /> while other early screenplays include I Was Monty's Double (1958),<ref name=guardian_batty /> and The League of Gentlemen (1960), his breakthrough. Directed by Basil Dearden, Forbes also starred. The film recounted a bank heist carried out by ex-army officers, and gained critical success, including his first BAFTA nomination.<ref name=Falk /><ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name="bbc_20040612" />

In 1959, he formed a production company, Beaver Films, with his frequent collaborator Richard Attenborough.<ref name=bbc /> Beaver Films made The Angry Silence (1960), a controversial Bafta-winning screenplay<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> by Forbes in which Attenborough took the lead role, and the two men shared production responsibilities.<ref name="bbc_20040612" /><ref name=bbc />

Film director

Forbes's directorial debut came with Whistle Down the Wind (1961), again produced by Attenborough, a critically acclaimed film about three northern children who conceal a criminal in their barn, believing him to be a reincarnated Jesus Christ.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name=bfi>British Film Institute: Profile at screenline.org Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref><ref name=bbc /> It starred child actor Hayley Mills<ref name="bbc_20040612" /> and Alan Bates, in one of his earliest film roles. The film was nominated for four BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source.<ref name=BAFTA_1962>BAFTA Awards: Film And British Film in 1962 Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> It was the basis for a 1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.<ref name="bbc_20040612" /><ref name=nytimes /> The L-Shaped Room (1962), his next film as director, with Leslie Caron in the female lead, led to her gaining a nomination for an Oscar, and winning the BAFTA (Best British Actress) and Golden Globe awards.<ref>Matthew Kennedy "'Thank Heaven: A Memoir, by Leslie Caron", Brightlights.com, issue 67, February 2010</ref> Comments Phil Wickham: "It feels like half a new wave film – a mid-point between the innovation of the Woodfall Films and the mainstream of the British film industry."<ref>Phil Wickham The L-Shaped Room profile at screenonline.org Template:Webarchive</ref>

Forbes wrote and directed Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964),<ref name=bbc /> and the same year he wrote the third screen adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel Of Human Bondage. In 1965, he went to Hollywood to make King Rat, a successful prisoner-of-war story.<ref name=guardian_batty /> He followed this with The Wrong Box (1966) and The Whisperers (1967), the latter featuring Edith Evans.<ref name=bbc /> A caper film, Deadfall (1968), starred Michael Caine.<ref name=bfi />

Head of EMI Films

Forbes was offered a three picture deal by Bernard Delfont who had just bought the film studio Associated British (soon to become EMI Films). Forbes refused, criticising Associated British; he wrote Delfont a paper about the state of the studio and how it should be run. Delfont hired him to be managing director at £30,000 a year.<ref name="bryan"/>

Dennis Barker, in his obituary of Forbes for The Guardian, states, 'This amounted virtually to an attempt to revive the ailing British film industry by instituting a traditional studio system with a whole slate of films in play.' <ref name=guardian_barker /> Forbes later said he went in with a "built in enemy" in the form of Nat Cohen who had also been offered the job, along with the "old guard" who did not like him.<ref name="bryan"/> "<ref name="four">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Under Forbes's leadership, the studio produced The Railway Children (1970), The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971) and The Go-Between (1971), all successful.<ref name=bfi /><ref name="Roberts">Andrew Roberts "Bryan Forbes profile at British Film Institute website Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name="Walker">Alexander Walker National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, London: Harrap, 1985, p. 114</ref> His tenure, though, was marked by financial problems and failed projects, and he resigned in 1971.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name=bbc /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Forbes had full autonomy over the films he made as long as they were below a certain amount but later said "I lacked power in the one area where it really matters - distribution."<ref name="bryan"/>

Coinciding with his time at EMI Films,<ref name="Roberts" /> he resumed directorial work with The Raging Moon (1971), starring his wife, Nanette Newman, and Malcolm McDowell.<ref name=bbc />

In 1994 Forbes claimed the 18 films he made at EMI for £4 million overall returned £18 million of profit to the studio, with only two of the films making a loss. (Forbes got 5% of the profit.)<ref name="bryan">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Later career

From the early 1970s, Forbes divided his energies between cinema, television, theatre, and writing. In 1972 he started work on the documentary Elton John and Bernie Taupin Say Goodbye Norma Jean and Other Things (1973),<ref name="BFI credits">"Forbes, Bryan (1926–[2013]) – Film and TV credits", BFI screenonline</ref> which chronicled the life of the young Elton John and Bernie Taupin.<ref>Barnes, M. "'Stepford Wives' director Bryan Forbes dies at 86", The Hollywood Reporter. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> Taking a full year to complete, the project gave a behind-the-scenes look at the writing and recording of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Besides footage of John's 1973 Hollywood Bowl concert, the film included interviews with John, Taupin, and band members, including Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, as well as John's mother, Sheila, DJM label chief Dick James, and James's son, Stephen. (Some of the concert footage was later licensed for the Eagle Vision Classic Albums series Goodbye Yellow Brick Road documentary.) During filming, Forbes formed a close friendship with John and Taupin, which led to other collaborations with them, including photography on the Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album sleeves. ITV broadcast the documentary in the UK on 4 December 1973,<ref name="BFI credits" /> and it was later briefly issued on VHS. It was shown in the U.S. on ABC.

Forbes returned to Hollywood to direct The Stepford Wives (1975), based on Ira Levin's novel of the same name.<ref name=bbc /> The thriller about the backlash against the Women's Liberation Movement in the U.S., in which Newman had a supporting role, was to become Forbes's best-known film, partly because of the protests against it.<ref name="bbc_20040612" /><ref name=nytimes>Fox M. Bryan Forbes, 'Stepford Wives' Director, is dead at 86 Template:Webarchive. The New York Times. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> Forbes clashed with screenwriter William Goldman over casting decisions and changes to the film's ending made by Forbes, causing Goldman to drop out of the project (while retaining the screenplay credit). Despite its notoriety, The Stepford Wives received mixed reviews and performed weakly at the box office. His subsequent films as a director were less successful: The Slipper and the Rose (1976), with David Frost as executive producer;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> International Velvet (1978), intended as a continuation of National Velvet (1944), with Newman in the same role as Elizabeth Taylor in the earlier film;<ref name="bbc_20040612" /> Better Late than Never (1983); and The Naked Face (1984).<ref name="Tel o" /> His final film as a screenwriter was Chaplin in 1992.

He served as president of the National Youth Theatre, Writers' Guild of Great Britain and the Beatrix Potter Society.<ref name="Tel o" />

For a time Forbes owned a bookshop in Virginia Water, Surrey.<ref>Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling (New York: Anchor Books/Penguin Random House, 2015), p. 82.</ref>

Author

Forbes wrote two volumes of autobiography and several successful novels, the last of which, The Soldier's Story, was published in 2012.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name=bbc /> He was a regular contributor to The Spectator magazine.

Awards and honours

Forbes's 1960 screenplay, The Angry Silence, won a BAFTA award, and was nominated for an Oscar.<ref name=guardian_barker>Barker, D. Bryan Forbes: film director, actor and writer. The Guardian. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> Only Two Can Play won Best British Comedy Screenplay of the Writers Guild of Great Britain in 1962.<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /> Séance on a Wet Afternoon won a 1965 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Foreign Film and the 1964 Best British Dramatic Screenplay of the Writers Guild of Great Britain.<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf /><ref>Search at Edgar Awards Database Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref> Hopscotch won the Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium of the Writers Guild of America in 1980.<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf />

Forbes's directorial debut, Whistle Down the Wind, was nominated for several BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source and Best British Film in 1962.<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf>British Academy of Film and Television Arts: A tribute to Bryan Forbes CBE: 25 May 2007 Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref><ref name=BAFTA_1962 /> Four of his other films were also nominated for BAFTA awards: The League of Gentlemen (1960), Only Two Can Play (1962), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and King Rat (1965).<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf />

In 2004, Forbes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the arts.<ref name="bbc_20040612" /> In 2006, he received the Dilys Powell Award for outstanding contribution to cinema of the London Film Critics' Circle Awards.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name=bbc /> In May 2007, he was the recipient of a BAFTA tribute, celebrating his 'outstanding achievement in filmmaking'.<ref name=BAFTA_tribute_pdf />

Personal life

In 1951 he married Irish actress Constance Smith, and the couple travelled to Hollywood in the early 1950s.<ref name="Tel o">Bryan Forbes Template:Webarchive. The Telegraph. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 May 2013</ref><ref name=guardian_barker /> Forbes soon returned to the UK;<ref name=guardian_barker /> he and Smith divorced in 1955. Forbes went on to marry actress Nanette Newman the same year.<ref name="Tel o" /> It was popularly believed that Roger Moore was their best man,<ref name="bbc_20040612" /> but Newman denied this on the Alan Titchmarsh Show in 2011. The couple had two daughters: journalist Sarah Standing,<ref>Sarah Standing "Bryan Forbes was a giant of a husband and father", 10 May 2013, The Daily Telegraph.</ref> who is married to actor John Standing; and television presenter Emma Forbes.<ref name=bbc />

Forbes was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975, while working on The Slipper and the Rose; he remained in remission, which he attributed to cutting out gluten and taking vitamins and oil of primrose, together with Newman's care.<ref name=nytimes /><ref name="Tel o" /> However, he revealed in a 2012 interview that it had been a misdiagnosis. He continued his acting, directing and screenwriting career into the early 1990s, and was still publishing novels in the 2010s.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name="bbc_20040612" /><ref name=bbc />

He lived in Virginia Water, Surrey where he ran a bookshop in the 1960s. The shop never made a profit, but he thought "it was 'right' to have a bookshop in his local village".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Forbes died at his home in Virginia Water on 8 May 2013 at the age of 86, following a long illness.<ref name=guardian_batty /><ref name=nytimes /><ref name=bbc>Template:Cite news</ref> His wife survives him.

Journalist and former Spectator editor Matthew d'Ancona, a friend of the Forbes family, said: "Bryan Forbes was a titan of cinema, known and loved by people around the world in the film and theatre industries, and known in other fields, including politics. He is simply irreplaceable and it is wholly apt that he died surrounded by his family." Film critic Mark Kermode wrote: "Once had the fan-boyish pleasure of telling Bryan Forbes how much I loved [The] Stepford Wives. He was charming and self-effacing. A great loss."<ref name=bbc />

Filmography

As director and writer

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Notes
1954	The Black Knight	Template:No	Template:Yes
1955	The Cockleshell Heroes	Template:No	Template:Yes
1958	I Was Monty's Double	Template:No	Template:Yes
1960	The Angry Silence	Template:No	Template:Yes	Also producer
	The League of Gentlemen	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Man in the Moon	Template:No	Template:Yes
1961	Whistle Down the Wind	Template:Yes	Template:No
1962	Only Two Can Play	Template:No	Template:Yes
	The L-Shaped Room	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1963	Station Six-Sahara	Template:No	Template:Yes
1964	Séance on a Wet Afternoon	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Also producer
	Of Human Bondage	Template:Partial	Template:Yes
1965	King Rat	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1966	The Wrong Box	Template:Yes	Template:No	Also producer
1967	The Whisperers	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1968	Deadfall	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1969	The Madwoman of Chaillot	Template:Yes	Template:No
1970	The Man Who Haunted Himself	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Eyewitness	Template:No	Template:Partial
1971	The Raging Moon	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1975	The Stepford Wives	Template:Yes	Template:Partial
1976	The Slipper and the Rose	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1978	International Velvet	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Also producer
1980	Hopscotch	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Sunday Lovers	Template:Yes	Template:No	Segment: "An Englishman's Home"
1983	Better Late Than Never	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1984	The Naked Face	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
1989	The Endless Game	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Television miniseries; also based on his novel
1992	Chaplin	Template:No	Template:Yes

As actor

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949	The Small Back Room	Peterson, dying gunner
	All Over the Town	Trumble
	Dear Mr. Prohack	Tony
1950	The Wooden Horse	Paul
1951	Green Grow the Rushes	Fred Starling - Biddle crew member
1952	Flesh and Fury	Fighter	Uncredited
	The World in His Arms	William Cleggett
1953	Appointment in London	The Brat
	Sea Devils	Willie
	Wheel of Fate	Ted Reid
1954	The Million Pound Note	Todd
	An Inspector calls	Eric
	Up to His Neck	Subby
1955	The Colditz Story	Jimmy Winslow
	Passage Home	Shorty
1956	Now and Forever	Frisby
	Mabrouka	Dying soldier	Scenes deleted
	The Baby and the Battleship	Prof. Evans
	Satellite in the Sky	Jimmy
	It's Great to Be Young	Mr. Parkes, organ salesman
	The Extra Day	Harry
1957	Quatermass 2	Marsh
1958	The Key	Weaver
	I Was Monty's Double	Young lieutenant	Cameo
1959	Yesterday's Enemy	Dawson
1960	The Angry Silence	Journalist	Uncredited cameo
	The League of Gentlemen	Martin Porthill
1961	The Guns of Navarone	Cohn
1964	Of Human Bondage	Uncredited role	Cameo
	A Shot in the Dark	Camp attendant	Credited as Turk Thrust
1965	King Rat	Radio	Uncredited voice cameo
1976	The Slipper and the Rose	Herald	Uncredited cameo
1978	International Velvet	Awards presenter
1984	December Flower	Harry Grey
1985	Restless Natives	Driver	Cameo

As head of EMI films

• And Soon the Darkness (1970)
• The Breaking of Bumbo (1970)
• Hoffman (1970)
• Eyewitness (1970)
• The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
• Spring and Port Wine (1970)
• The Railway Children (1970)
• A Fine and Private Place (1970) (abandoned)
• The Go-Between (1971)
• Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (1971)
• The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971)
• The Raging Moon (1971)
• Dulcima (1971)

Select writings

Novels

• Truth Lies Sleeping and other stories (1950)
• The Distant Laughter (1972)
• Slipper and the Rose (1976)
• International Velvet (1978)
• Familiar Strangers (1979), published as Stranger in the USA in 1980
• The Rewrite Man (1983)
• The Endless Game (1986)
• A Song At Twilight (1989)
• The Twisted Playground (1993)
• Partly Cloudy (1995)
• Quicksand (1996)
• The Memory of All That (1999)
• The Choice (2007)
• The Soldier's Story (2012)

Non fiction

• Notes for a Life (1974)
• Ned's Girl: The Life of Edith Evans (1977)
• That Despicable Race: A History of the British Acting Tradition (1980)
• A Divided Life (1992)

References

General sources

• Template:Cite magazine

External links

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• Template:Screenonline name
• Britmovie article
• Forbes at hollywood.com
• Bibliography of Forbes's fiction and non-fiction
• A Tribute to Forbes, BAFTA webcast, May 2007
• Portrait by Noel Haring
• The Papers of Bryan Forbes held at Churchill Archives Centre
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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