Richard Samuel Attenborough is a legendary English film and theater actor, director, producer, winner of awards: Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, San Sebastian Film Festival. He was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire, then received a knighthood and a lifetime title of Baron in the peerage of the United Kingdom.
During his creative biography, the actor has played more than a hundred roles in film and television. He was also an excellent filmmaker who received numerous top cinematic awards.
Attenborough lived an interesting and long life. He was recognized as an outstanding actor and director in England, received well-deserved recognition and fame. He passed away shortly before his 91st birthday. The actor passed away in 2014.
short biography
Richard was born in the summer of 1923 in England. The boy's father worked as director of the University College in Leicester, and his mother worked as director of the Leicester Little Theater. The family brought up 2 more sons: David and John.
A few months before the start of the war with Germany, the parents became active participants in a child rescue operation called "Kindertransport". Its essence was that Jewish children brought from Nazi Germany and a number of other cities, where they were persecuted and persecuted, were placed in English families. Attenborough took on the education of the girls Helga and Irene. After the end of the war, they stayed with the family because their parents died.
Richard from an early age began to dream of an acting career. After completing his primary education at the Wyggeston Grammar School for boys, he continued his studies at the Royal Academy (RADA). Already in the first years, many noted the outstanding talent of the young man and predicted a brilliant career for him on stage and in the cinema.
Creative way
Richard made his film debut in 1942. He appeared on the screen as a deserter sailor in the film "In Which We Serve". The work turned out to be very successful and soon the young actor began to receive new proposals from directors and producers.
Over the course of several years, dozens of films with his participation were released. For the majority of film fans in Russia, the name of these films will not say anything, because most of them have never been shown in our country and have not been translated into Russian. But for a Western audience, Attenborough's name is well known, and films with his participation entered the golden fund of cinema.
The actor gained wide popularity in the 1960s of the last century. He played in many popular films, and his career developed rapidly. If in the first years of his work in cinema, Richard starred mainly in war films, then later they began to offer him roles in different genres.
In the early 1960s, Attenborough won two awards at the San Sebastian Film Festival for his roles in the crime comedy League of Gentlemen and the crime drama Session on a Rainy Night.
In those same years, Richard decided to take up directing and producing. His first production job was the 1960 film Angry Silence. The directorial debut took place a few years later in the film "Oh, What a Wonderful War."
In the early 1980s, the film "Gandhi" was released, dedicated to the life of the famous Indian public and political leader Mahatma Gandhi. For his directing work, Attenborough received several awards at once, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe, as well as one of the state awards of India.
The most successful works of Attenborough as an actor were roles in the films: "Doctor Dolittle", "Flight of the Phoenix", "Sand Pebbles", "Hamlet", "Jurassic Park", "Land of Shadows", "Chaplin", "Gandhi", " Misconduct, Jack and the Bean Tree: A True Story, Miracle on 34th Street, 10 Rillington Place.
He directed 12 films, including: "Young Winston", "A Bridge Too Far", "Gandhi", "Kardeballet", "Chaplin", "Land of Shadows", "Closing the Circle".
Interesting Facts
For many years, the actor was President of The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Chairman of Capital Radio, President of the Gandhi Foundation, Vice President of the Film and Television Industry Development Charitable Foundation. In 1998, he was elected to the post of rector of the University of Sussex.
Richard was an avid football fan, fan and patron of the English club Chelsea. He became director of the club in 1969 and later took the honorary position of vice president.
He was also the head of the Dragon International consortium, which was building a complex of studios for filming television and film projects in Llanilida called "Walllywood".
He was a patron of the United World Colleges movement. He made significant contributions to the development of the educational process in the colleges that are members of this organization.
He and his wife founded the Richard and Sheila Attenborough Center for the Visual Arts. He also founded the Jane Holland Creative Center in memory of his daughter who died in the 2004 Thailand tsunami.
In 2006, he and his brother David were named Distinguished Fellows of the University of Leicester.
Personal life
Richard became the husband of actress Sheila Sim in 1945. The couple had 3 children. The eldest son Michael became a theater director, and the youngest daughter Charlotte became an actress.
In 2004, a misfortune happened in the family. Attenborough's middle daughter, Jane, as well as son-in-law Michael Holland, his mother and 3 grandchildren went on vacation to Thailand. It was then that a tsunami hit Phuket Island. In this tragedy, Richard's daughter, mother-in-law and granddaughter were killed.
In the last years of his life, Richard was confined to a wheelchair, but remained as sociable as before. He spent his final days in a nursing home in London, where his wife was also staying.
Richard passed away in the summer of 2014 at the age of 90, just 5 days before his next birthday.
