Welsh Directors
I include Zambian-born Rungano Nyoni who was raised in Wales, and Kim Longinotto and Gareth Edwards, both born in England of Welsh parents. Of Welsh ancestry: Charlie Chaplin, John Huston, D.W.Griffith. See also my lists Welsh Actors and Actresses, A Welsh Selection and Notable Welsh People
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Keith Allen was born on 2 September 1953 in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Others (2001), 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Kevin Allen's latest feature is the counterculture romantic comedy LA CHA CHA. Filmed during the summer 2020 lockdown and shot entirely on an iphone using Moondog anamorphic lenses, La Cha Cha, stars Rhys Ifans, Dougray Scott, Keith Allen and Melanie Walters and is available on Amazon Prime.
Next up is TIN, the much awaited sequel to TWIN TOWN, set in the world of home grown cannabis in Welsh town of Llanelli.
Also slated is THE CRUCIBLE an epic 4-part period drama set in 19th century Merthyr Tydfil during the industrial revolution.
Allen's film version of Dylan Thomas UNDER MILK WOOD was shot in two language versions, and the Welsh film was selected as the British entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards and was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2015.
In 2013 Kevin directed Y-SYRCAS which was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru Award and won the Audience and Jury awards at The European Minority Language Film Festival 2014.
He supervised and developed projects in Hollywood including COMING OUT for Milk Wood Films and CHEEK TO CHEEK' a feature film collaboration with Gene Wilder. Allen set up Airstream Films at this time' developing a diverse slate of feature projects with his producing partner, Kate McCreery.
He then directed AGENT CODY BANKS 2: DESTINATION LONDON.
In 2005 Allen adapted Louis Stevenson's novel, TREASURE ISLAND, as both a feature film and TV series for Working Title Films.
Kevin directed the first series of ITV's BENIDORM for which he was nominated for his second BAFTA.- Director
- Writer
- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Jane Arden was born in Wales in 1927 and left for London in her teens.
She trained at RADA and quickly began working as an actress and playwright. It was there that she met her future husband, Philip Saville, who is now perhaps most known for his work Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). They had 2 children, Sebastian Saville and Dominic Saville and one step- child, Elizabeth Saville.
Jane Arden's plays include The Thug (1959) which starred Alan Bates, The Party (1958) which was directed by Charles Laughton and gave Albert Finney his first role in the theatre, Post Mortem (1999), _The New Communion For Freaks, Prophets and Witches (1999)_, The Illusionist (1983) and Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven (1969).
Jane Arden began tracing female oppression in 1966 when she wrote a script for the film The Logic Game (1965). It was described as a "surrealist puzzle" attempting to locate the isolation of women in the context of bourgeois marriage.
Arden's film career includes her original script and her performance in Separation (1968), which featured the song "Salad Days" by Procol Harum and was directed by Jane Arden's collaborator Jack Bond. In this film, women's' exploitation was exposed as their personal dilemma began to take on a political context.
Arden formed the feminist theatre group "Holocaust" and then wrote a play with the same name. In 1972, she adapted and directed this for the cinema as The Other Side of Underneath (1972).
Before her involvement with the Women's Liberation Movement, she appeared on TV talk programmes like Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964) as a speaker on women and politics. As an actress, she was best known for her performance as "Inez" in a BBC-TV production of Jean-Paul Sartre Huis clos (1965), opposite Harold Pinter as "Garcia".
Two more films, both co-directed with Jack Bond, followed in the later 1970s, the experimental Vibration (1974), made in the USA in 1974, and Anti-Clock (1979) which opened the 1979 London Film Festival. It was the fist film to use video techniques in an experimental way. Her poetry books include "You Don't Know What You Want, Do You?". Jane Arden committed suicide on Dec. 20, 1982 in North Yorkshire and is buried in Darlington West Cemetary. She was 55 years old.- Director
- Editor
- Cinematographer
Scott Barley is an artist-filmmaker based between Scotland and Wales, UK. His work has been screened in Europe, Asia, and The Americas, including The Institute of Contemporary Arts London, BFI Southbank, Sheffield Doc Fest, Centre of Contemporary Culture Barcelona, Doclisboa, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Venice Biennale, Dokufest, Festival du nouveau cinéma, EYE Filmmuseum, Singapore Art Museum, Telluride Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art Rio, Museum of Contemporary Art Buenos Aires, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and Fronteira International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival.
His work is primarily concerned with the anthropocene, nature, darkness, cosmology, phenomenology, and mysticism, and has been associated with the Remodernist and Slow Cinema movements. His filmmaking and imagery has been compared with the sensibilities of filmmakers, Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, David Lynch, Maya Deren, Aleksandr Sokurov, Stan Brakhage, Peter Hutton, Jean Epstein, and Philippe Grandrieux, as well as the artists, J. M. W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, Anselm Kiefer, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Michael Biberstein, and John Martin.
Since early 2015, Barley has exclusively shot his films on iPhone. His short film, Hinterlands was voted one of the best films of 2016 in Sight & Sound's yearly film poll. His first feature-length work, Sleep Has Her House was released in early 2017, garnering universal acclaim, and winning the Jury Award for Best Film at Fronteira International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, in Goiânia, Brazil. It later received nominations in Sight & Sound's 2017 and 2018 film polls, as well as in Sight & Sound's 'The best video essays of 2018'. The film also received nominations in Senses of Cinema's 2017 poll, and The Village Voice 2017 film poll for Best Film, Best First Feature, and Best Director.
In 2018, Barley co-founded Obscuritads - "an international collective focused on rendering the invisible visible" - with filmmaker, Mikel Guillen (Toronto) and curator and programmer, Miquel Escudero Diéguez (Paris, Barcelona).
In early 2020, film historian and theoretician, Nicole Brenez cited Sleep Has Her House as one of the ten best films of the decade, after previously writing that "[Barley's works] renew our conception of visuality", and describing him as, "one of the most gifted visual poets of his generation." In the same year, academic and film critic, Borja Castillejo Calvo cited Sleep Has Her House as the second best film of the 2010's, and Womb (2017) as the best short film of the decade.
As of 2022, Barley's second feature-length film, The Sea Behind Her Head is in production. The film is produced by Luke Moody and is funded by the British Film Institute (BFI) and DocSociety.
Danish film critic, and former director of the European Documentary Network, Tue Steen Müller has described him as the "Anselm Kiefer of cinema".- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in Pontrhydyfen to Edith Maude (Thomas) and Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner. The twelfth of thirteen children, his mother died while he was a toddler and his father later abandoned the family, leaving him to be raised by an elder sister, Cecilia. An avid fan of Shakespeare, poetry and reading, he once said "home is where the books are". He received a scholarship to Oxford University to study acting and made his first stage appearance in 1944.
His first film appearances were in routine British movies such as Woman of Dolwyn (1949), Waterfront Women (1950) and Green Grow the Rushes (1951). Then he started to appear in Hollywood movies such as My Cousin Rachel (1952), The Robe (1953) and Alexander the Great (1956), added to this he was also spending considerable time in stage productions, both in the UK and USA, often to splendid reviews. The late 1950s was an exciting and inventive time in UK cinema, often referred to as the "British New Wave", and Burton was right in the thick of things, and showcased a sensational performance in Look Back in Anger (1959). He also appeared with a cavalcade of international stars in the World War II magnum opus The Longest Day (1962), and then onto arguably his most "notorious" role as that of Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the hugely expensive Cleopatra (1963). This was, of course, the film that kick-started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages), and the two of them appeared in several productions over the next few years including The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), the dynamic Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Taming of The Shrew (1967), as well as box office flops like The Comedians (1967). Burton did better when he was off on his own giving higher caliber performances, such as those in Becket (1964), the film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana (1964), the brilliant espionage thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and alongside Clint Eastwood in the World War II action adventure film Where Eagles Dare (1968).
His audience appeal began to decline somewhat by the end of the 1960s as fans turned to younger, more virile male stars, however Burton was superb in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) as King Henry VIII, he put on a reasonable show in the boring Raid on Rommel (1971), was over the top in the awful Villain (1971), gave sleepwalking performances in Hammersmith Is Out (1972) and Bluebeard (1972), and was wildly miscast in the ludicrous The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).
By the early 1970s, quality male lead roles were definitely going to other stars, and Burton found himself appearing in some movies of dubious quality, just to pay the bills and support family, including Divorce His - Divorce Hers (1973) (his last on-screen appearance with Taylor), The Klansman (1974), Brief Encounter (1974), Jackpot (1974) (which was never completed) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, he won another Oscar nomination for his excellent performance as a concerned psychiatrist in Equus (1977). He appeared with fellow acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese (1978) about mercenaries in South Africa. While the film had a modest initial run, over the past thirty-five years it has picked up quite a cult following. His final performances were as the wily inquisitor "O'Brien" in the most recent film version of George Orwell's dystopian 1984 (1984), in which he won good reviews, and in the TV mini series Ellis Island (1984). He passed away on August 5, 1984 in Celigny, Switzerland from a cerebral hemorrhage.- Composer
- Actor
- Music Department
Classically trained (viola and piano) and well-educated, Welsh-born John Cale became interested in both the experimental side of classical music (including artists like John Cage), and American rock-n-roll. When offered a chance to study music in New York in the early 1960s, Cale accepted, and along with school became an apprentice of Cage's, including performing a relay piano piece with him ("Vexations") onstage.
Needing some quick cash away from his studies during 1964, Cale next became the bass guitarist for a band called the Primitives, put together around a song (called "The Ostrich") by Lou Reed, who was then a staff writer for a small record label. The record bombed, but Cale and Reed became musical partners and co-writers.
Forming The Velvet Underground the next year with Reed's old college classmate Sterling Morrison, a cornerstone of the band was the camaraderie of Reed and Cale, and the way they worked together. Cale's classical touches gave the streetwise rock group's sound a unique, refined edge, and an added intellectual appeal.
Making slow progress as a rock band, though, and Cale's missing the British Isles, had nearly persuaded the Velvets to pack up and try their luck in England, before their fateful meeting with artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol at the end of 1965. Acting as their manager and producer, Warhol put the band to work the next year, performing live at his shows, providing soundtracks for his films, and even appearing in the films occasionally. He also teamed up actress and "chanteuse" Nico with the Velvets, and secured them the recording contract (for MGM's Verve label) they'd wanted. Besides their working relationship, Cale and Reed each formed close personal ties with Warhol.
A falling-out between Cale and Reed during 1968 led to his exit from the Velvet Underground (not long after Nico's, and the band's firing of Warhol). With all the experience he'd gained, Cale became a writer and producer in his own right, making solo albums ("Vintage Violence", "The Academy In Peril", "Music For A New Society") and producing records for other artists (including Nico's "The Marble Index"). He and Lou Reed mended their friendship during the 1970s, but never worked together again until 1988, after Andy Warhol's death. The tributes each had been working on separately turned into the joint album "Songs For Drella" (a nickname for Warhol), which became a surprise hit in 1989.
Cale continued his solo writing and producing, but reunited with the Velvet Underground in 1992 for a tour, and a live album. With admirers in both the rock and classical worlds, Cale has secured a place for himself in popular music.- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
James Cellan Jones was born on 13 July 1931 in Swansea, Wales, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Oxbridge Blues (1984), A Fine Romance (1981) and The Adams Chronicles (1976). He was married to Margot Eavis. He died on 30 August 2019.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Keri is a BAFTA winning director and writer whose work has feature on Netflix, Sky, BBC, Fox, and The Sunday Times who was named by Deadline as a 'Writer to Watch' in 2024.
In 2023, his screenplay Super Gran topped The Brit List, the curated collection of he best unproduced screenplays in the UK, with a record high number of recommendations.
In 2018 he sold an action comedy feature spec script to an Emmy winning production company.
His debut feature film as director; a comedy titled 'Convenience', starred a large ensemble cast of British and American comedy talent. The film received multiple 4 star reviews and was acquired by Netflix. Keri won the BAFTA Cymru Breakthrough Award for his work on that film.
His short film 'Funday' was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Short Form.
He was also previously mentored by Sir Kenneth Branagh as part of the prestigious Guiding Lights scheme in the UK, and named as one of the Screen International Stars of Tomorrow in 2014.- Visual Effects
- Director
- Writer
Gareth James Edwards was born on June 1, 1975 in the English town of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Growing up, he admired movies such as the 1977 classic "Star Wars", and went on to pursue a film career. He even cites George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as his biggest influences. Edwards studied BA (Hons) Film & Video at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham (formerly the Surrey Institute of Art & Design), graduating in 1996. In 2012, he received an honorary Master of Arts from UCA.
Edwards got his start in special visual effects, working on visual f/x for programs that aired on networks such as PBS, BBC and the Discovery Channel. In 2008 he entered (and won) the Sci-Fi-London 48-hour film challenge, where a movie had to be created from start-to-finish in just two days, within certain criteria. Edwards wrote and directed his first full-length feature, "Monsters", which was shot in only three weeks. Edwards personally created the film's special effects by using off-the-shelf equipment. Asides from the two main actors (real-life couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able), the crew consisted of just five people. The $500,000 thriller received a riotous reception at the South by Southwest festival, and was released by Veritgo Films to great success.
The success of "Monsters" resulted in Edwards getting offers from the major studios, especially Warner Bros., who tapped him to direct an English-language reboot of the 1954 Japanese classic "Gojira". Produced by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, "Godzilla" began development in 2011 with Edwards at the helm, and was released on May 16, 2014 to mixed reviews and tremendous box office success, grossing $529 million worldwide against a $160 million budget.
Following the success of "Godzilla", producer Kathleen Kennedy tapped Edwards to helm a spin-off of "Star Wars" for Lucasfilm Limited. In 2015, it was revealed that Edwards' "Star Wars" spin-off, written Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, would be titled "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", set for release on December 16, 2016. The film boasts an ensemble cast including Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Mad Mikkelsen and James Earl Jones among others.- Director
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Sally El Hosaini was born in 1976 in Swansea, Wales, UK. She is a director and writer, known for The Swimmers (2022), My Brother the Devil (2012) and Green Zone (2010).- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Endaf Emlyn was born in 1945 in Pwllheli, Wales, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Leaving Lenin (1993), Un nos ola' leuad (1991) and Storms of August (1988).- Actor
- Director
- Cinematographer
Cerith Wyn Evans was born in 1958 in Llanelli, Wales, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Degrees of Blindness (1988), The Angelic Conversation (1985) and The Last of England (1987).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Welsh born writer/director, in 2003 directed a short film "Samurai Monogatari" telling the tale of a Samurai waiting to be executed. The short was in Japanese language and starred students from Tokyo who were studying at Cardiff University at the time.
In 2003 he also graduated with an MA in Scriptwriting for Film and Television at the University of Glamorgan but it was not until 2006 that he would see his first major production with the self-penned feature "Footsteps". In 2006 the film premiered at the Swansea Bay Film Festival where it was awarded the prize for "Best Film", it has since gone on to receive critical acclaim and is due to be released in the US through extreme cinema label, Unearthed Films in summer 2007.
Currently he is directing a documentary for Christine Hakim Films in Indonesia entitled "The Mystic Arts of Indonesia: Pencak Silat". The documentary is one of a five episode series covering the cultural heritage of Indonesia and is expected to broadcast once the series is complete in 2008.
Following this he is expected to begin work on a second feature in summer 2007.- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Kieran Evans is known for Kelly + Victor (2012), Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before (2008) and The Outer Edges (2013).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Marc Evans was born in 1963 in Wales, UK. He is a director and writer, known for My Little Eye (2002), Snow Cake (2006) and House of America (1997).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Karl Francis began making films in 1971, turning out mainly documentaries for television. He worked initially as a researcher and writer. He studied film at the late age of 26, having previously had an honours degree in Modern History, Politics & Economics. He wrote his own scripts and began directing following a deep disappointment at the way his film 'A Breed of Men', starring Stanley Baker, was directed. He went on to produce successful documentaries for television, including 'Weekend World' (presented by Peter Jay) and 'Second House' presented by Melvin Bragg. His series for the BBC - 'Man in his Place' - received brilliant reviews, which gave him showreels to sell his feature work. In 1973, he was blacklisted by the BBC for five years, so he made his own film after putting his house up for sale. It was called 'Above Us The Earth', and was described by critic John Berger as 'A film which is relentlessly and remarkably truthful... I know of no other film which has been made in which miners inhabit the film itself as if it were their own village.' He subsequently acquired the rights to a Dylan Thomas short story and made his first feature film 'The Mouse and the Woman', which again received wonderful reviews and praise from David Putnam. The New Statesman described this First World War drama as 'Illuminated by flashes of raw visual poetry.' The Sunday Express called it 'Stunningly acted' and 'eloquently photographed... turned by Francis' alchemy to golden dramatic value.' Francis then went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and in 1981 gave up drinking successfully. Since then, he produced numerous award-winning films, most of which he wrote and directed himself. These include 'Giro City' with Glenda Jackson, 'Boy Soldier' with Richard Lynch, '1996' for the BBC, 'Rebecca's Daughters' with Peter O'Toole and Joley Richardson, among many others. He mixed successful documentaries, which include the hugely important 1985 film 'Ms Rhymney Valley', an extraordinary epic telling of the Miners' Strike for the BBC from the point of view of the miners. During the mid-90s, Karl Francis took on the responsibility of becoming Head of Drama for BBC Wales, but it was not for him. He then moved abroad, making films more often in Spain and Africa. His film 'One of the Hollywood Ten', starring Jeff Goldblum, received wonderful reviews, but given its left-wing sympathies had a limited distribution. In 2007, his film 'Hope Eternal', which is a metaphysical love story about depression and grief against a powerful storyline of human trafficking, he employed 95% of black African actors and crew. This film became the 2008 UK BAFTA nomination for the Oscars. Simultaneously, Francis began researching another film on child abuse, and got himself into serious trouble, which eventually sent him into a deep depression, despite the fact that the crown prosecution service (CPS) withdrew the accusations. He accepted a caution to protect his family from the media, something he hated doing but which his friends said was the bravest thing he had done in his life. Human Rights has played a big part in his life, and he felt insulted given the fact that he informed the police of everything he was doing. Francis' work has been compared with that of Ken Loach and John Ford. He brilliantly makes documentaries look like drama, and has won awards in Europe, USA, Australia and Edinburgh for his work. His documentaries were frequently mistaken for pure drama, which Francis calls 'Welsh Realism'.- Editor
- Director
- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Steve Gough is a Bafta-winning film writer, director and producer, who has also worked in television, radio and on the stage. Born and educated in Wales he trained at the UK's National Film School in Beaconsfield, his student films winning prizes at Chicago and Berlin. His breakthrough as a writer came in 1989 with the BBC film 1989 film 'Heartland', starring Anthony Hopkins and Jane Horrocks, set in rural West Wales. Three years later he both wrote and directed the BFI/S4C/ZDF Welsh period drama, 'Elenya' which was Centrepiece Film at the London Film Festival and won Best Film at Bafta Wales in 1993. Seven years later his second film for the BBC, a comedy, 'Washed Up', won the same top prize at Bafta Wales.
In later years he published two novels with grants from the Welsh Books Council; and also worked in radio drama, writing an original drama serial and a Saturday Play for Radio 4. He also saw three plays produced on the London and Los Angeles fringe. In 2017 he returned to film: writing, directing and producing the Third Reel Feature, 'Red Call' which won Best Feature at the Wales International Film Festival the following year. He lives with his wife in London.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Peter Greenaway trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several one-man shows and curated exhibitions at museums world-wide.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Andrew Grieve was born on 28 November 1939 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. He is a director and assistant director, known for On the Black Hill (1988), Horatio Hornblower: The Duel (1998) and Horatio Hornblower: The Wrong War (1999).- Animation Department
- Director
- Production Manager
Sid Griffiths was born in 1901 in the UK. He was a director and production manager, known for The Poachers (1903), Animal Farm (1954) and Honesty Is the Best Policy (1925). He died in 1967.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
A British television comedy legend, who will forever be remembered for directing and producing series such as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976), Butterflies (1978) and Only Fools and Horses (1981), Gareth Gwenlan was born in Brecon on April 26 1937. His father died when he was two and he was brought up by his grandparents and widowed mother, a teacher, in Cefn Coed near Merthyr Tydfil. Educated at Vaynor and Penderyn High School, Cefn Coed, he saw active service as an RAF National Serviceman in Cyprus, then a British colony, during the Eoka insurgency. In 1958 he returned home to train as an actor at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Sidcup. In 1960, he joined the repertory company at the Theatre Royal, York, where he met and shared digs with the actor John Alderton.
Moving to the Derby Playhouse, he fulfilled his ambition to direct when taking over after the incumbent director fell ill; once recovered, he made Gwenlan assistant director. Gwenlan then worked as artistic director at the Garrick Theatre in Altrincham, Cheshire, producing its first pantomime, which he had directed at Derby. In 1964 he was appointed principal lecturer in opera and drama at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and staged operatic productions of Othello and Madame Butterfly.
In 1965, he joined the BBC as an assistant floor manager in the drama department, working on a version of The Three Musketeers (1966) and the legendary Doctor Who (1963) during the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras. Spotting a queue of people filing in to the recording of a sitcom, he tagged along out of curiosity and, as he laughed with the audience, realised that he had found his true calling and switched to comedy. By 1967, he was directing programmes like Oh Brother! (1968), All Gas and Gaiters (1966) and Comedy Playhouse (1961).
In 1970, Gwenlan was seconded to the Foreign Office and sent to Pakistan to launch the country's new state television service. He spent two years training staff in news, documentaries and drama, reading the news in English and interviewing the British prime minister Edward Heath who was in Islamabad en route to Hong Kong for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
On his return to London, Gwenlan worked with stars such as Nana Mouskouri, Mantovani and Keith Michell on various music shows, and in the late 1970s directed the comedian Spike Milligan on his anarchic Q... series of sketches, an experience that Gwenlan claimed caused him to turn prematurely grey.
After leaving the BBC in 1990 he worked as a freelance director-producer on Sky television's first sitcom Time Gentlemen Please (2000), before completing the final Christmas trilogy of Only Fools and Horses (1981) for the BBC. Between 2002 and 2008 he ran a comedy department for BBC Wales, and produced six series of the popular sitcom High Hopes (2002), set in the Welsh Valleys.
An accomplished horseman, his love of riding was kindled while working on The Three Musketeers (1966), and he served as president of the BBC riding club where he was also a riding instructor. He competed successfully at dressage for many years, winning rosettes and continuing to compete well into his sixties.
Gwenlan served on the committee of the Garrick Club, to which he was elected in 1993. In 1997 he was awarded a Royal Television Society Fellowship, and appointed OBE in 2013. He received a lifetime achievement award from Bafta in 2011.
Gareth Gwenlan married, in 1962, Valerie Bonner, with whom he had a son. The marriage was dissolved, and in 1986 he married Sarah Fanghanel (dissolved). His third marriage, in 2000, was to Gail Evans, a BBC drama producer, who survived him with his son and a daughter from another relationship.- Director
- Producer
- Editor
Arthur William Haggar, a film pioneer of the silent era, began his career as a traveling entertainer who later bought a Bioscope show and earned his money in south Wales. Beginning in 1902 he began making ground-breaking fiction films which made him one of the earliest British film directors. "Desperate Poaching Affray", one of his most popular films, is believed to have influenced early narrative drama. It is one of four films by this director that is known to survive, though Haggar himself created more than 30 documented films with the help of his family, who made up his film company.
Though Haggar's fictitious filmmaking began in 1902, he began making films in 1901. These films were not the sort of documentaries created by August and Louis Lumiere, but were of the more entertaining side as Haggar himself understood what would entertain audiences. In 1902, Haggar's first great masterpiece, a film called "The Maid of Cefn Ydfa" earned his popularity. This film was shown at the Swansea fair and was one of the first films to gain a regional audience.
But it was "Desperate Poaching Affray" that became increasingly popular, having sold over 480 prints in Europe and America, and was such a success that it was widely pirated.
Haggar died on 4 February, 1925 in Elm Grove, Aberdare at the home of Walter Haggar, his son. The four films of his that remain today are "Desperate Poaching Affray", "The Life of Charles Peace" "The Sheepstealer" and "Revenge!".- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear (1967).
From this moment on, he enjoyed a successful career in cinema and television. In 1968, he worked on The Lion in Winter (1968) with Timothy Dalton. Many successes came later, and Hopkins' remarkable acting style reached the four corners of the world. In 1977, he appeared in two major films: A Bridge Too Far (1977) with James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould and Laurence Olivier, and Maximilian Schell. In 1980, he worked on The Elephant Man (1980). Two good television literature adaptations followed: Othello (1981) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). In 1987 he was awarded with the Commander of the order of the British Empire. This year was also important in his cinematic life, with 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), acclaimed by specialists. In 1993, he was knighted.
In the 1990s, Hopkins acted in movies like Desperate Hours (1990) and Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993) (nominee for the Oscar), Legends of the Fall (1994), Nixon (1995) (nominee for the Oscar), Surviving Picasso (1996), Amistad (1997) (nominee for the Oscar), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998) and Instinct (1999). His most remarkable film, however, was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He also got a B.A.F.T.A. for this role.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Jack Howells was born in July 1913 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. He was a writer and director, known for A Tribute to Dylan Thomas (1961), Here's to the Memory! (1952) and Front Page Story (1954). He died on 6 September 1990 in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Caradog W. James was born in June 1976. He is a director and producer, known for The Machine (2013), Little White Lies (2006) and Don't Knock Twice (2016).- Director
- Editor
- Editorial Department
Pedr James was born on 27 July 1940 in Enfield, Middlesex, England, UK. He is a director and editor, known for Our Friends in the North (1996), Food for Ravens (1997) and Coronation Street (1960).- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk. His older brother is production designer Nigel Jones. His grandparents were involved in the entertainment business, having managed the local Amateur Operatic Society and staged Gilbert and Sullivan concerts. Jones studied at St. Edmund Hall College, Oxford University, read English but graduated with a degree in History. He was variously captain of boxing, captain of the Rugby Team and School Captain. At about this time, he befriended Michael Palin. Both performed comedy together as part of the Oxford Revue. In 1965, he again partnered Palin in The Late Show (1966) and worked in the dual capacity of writer/actor on Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. Another noteworthy television credit was Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) (again with Palin) in which fun was poked at famous historical personae, Jones essaying Oliver Cromwell, Sir Walter Raleigh and Henry VIII (among others).
Needless to say that Jones found his greatest success as a founding member of the anarchic and irreverent Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), along with Palin, Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam. Jones not only provided much of the written comic input, but also portrayed many of the classic characters: the implausibly obese Mr. Creosote in The Meaning of Life (1983) (who explodes after one more little wafer), the inept Detective Superintendent Harry "Snapper" Organs in the Piranha Brothers sketch (a take on the Kray Twins), the tobacconist in the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook sketch and numerous assorted shrill-voiced, slovenly 'rat-bag women' (Mrs. Equator comes to mind).
The Pythons were unconventional, controversial, certainly groundbreaking and invariably inspired, at their best in their unrelenting satirical attacks on established British institutions, ruling hierarchies and the class structure. Jones later said "The thing is we never thought Python was a success when it was actually happening, it was only with the benefit of hindsight". In addition to writing and acting, Jones also co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) (with Terry Gilliam) and took solo directing credit for Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life. Post-Python, he rejoined Palin as co-writer for some of the very best episodes of Ripping Yarns (1976), including Whinfrey's Last Case, Tompkinson's Schooldays, Murder at Moorstone Manor, The Curse of the Claw and The Testing of Eric Oldthwaite. Jones later scripted Labyrinth (1986) from a story by Jim Henson and Dennis Lee and wrote, as well as directed, Erik the Viking (1989) and Absolutely Anything (2015), a science fiction comedy with Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale.
On a more serious note, Jones sidelined as a newspaper columnist and was an outspoken social and political commentator (a staunch critic of the Iraq War). His lifelong fascination with medieval and ancient history (and Geoffrey Chaucer in particular) led to presenting a series of television documentaries (Medieval Lives (2004) and Barbarians (2006))) as well as publishing several well researched, if sometimes controversial, books including Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary and Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery.
Jones died at the age of 77 on 21 January 2020 from complications of dementia, at his home in Highgate, North London.- Director
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Kim Longinotto was born in 1952 in London, England, UK. She is a director and cinematographer, known for Sisters in Law (2005), Gaea Girls (2000) and The Day I Will Never Forget (2002).- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Euros Lyn was born in 1971 in Wales, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Torchwood (2006), Doctor Who (2005) and Heartstopper (2022).- Actor
- Director
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Richard Marquand was born on 22 September 1937 in Llanishen, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), Nowhere to Run (1993) and Jagged Edge (1985). He was married to Carol Bell and Josephine Marquand. He died on 4 September 1987 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, UK.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.
Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred Jones. He spent his youth in the pursuit of sports. He became an expert rider early on, working at his uncle's horse-breeding estate while studying at the King's College in Cardiff. At 21, he went to London as a member of the elite Household Cavalry (Guard for the Royal Family), undergoing a rigorous 19-months training, further honing his equestrian skills, as well as becoming adept at fencing, boxing and shooting. He won trophies, including the Bisley Match, with his unit's crack rifle team. However, after four years, he suddenly lost his means of financial support (independent income being a requirement as a Guardsman) when his stepfather discontinued his allowance. Broke, he tried his hand at acting in small parts on the London stage.
There are several stories as to how he derived his stage name. It is known, that during his teens he called himself "Mullane", using his stepfather's surname. He may later have suffused "Mullane" with "mill-lands", an area near his hometown. When he first appeared on screen in British films, he was billed first as Spike Milland, then Raymond Milland.
In 1929, Ray befriended the popular actress Estelle Brody at a party and, later that year, visited her on the set of her latest film, The Plaything (1929). While having lunch, they were joined by a producer who persuaded the handsome Welshman to appear in a motion picture bit part. Ray rose to the challenge and bigger roles followed, including the male lead in The Lady from the Sea (1929). The following year, he was signed by MGM and went to Hollywood, but was given little to work with, except for the role of Charles Laughton's ill-fated nephew in Payment Deferred (1932). After a year, Ray was out of his contract and returned to England.
His big break did not come until 1934 when he joined Paramount, where he was to remain for the better part of his Hollywood career. During the first few years, he served an apprenticeship playing second leads, usually as the debonair man-about-town, in light romantic comedies. He appeared with Burns and Allen in Many Happy Returns (1934), enjoyed third-billing as a British aristocrat in the Claudette Colbert farce The Gilded Lily (1935) and was described as "excellent" by reviewers for his role in the sentimental drama Alias Mary Dow (1935). By 1936, he had graduated to starring roles, first as the injured British hunter rescued on a tropical island by The Jungle Princess (1936), the film which launched Dorothy Lamour's sarong-clad career. After that, he was the titular hero of Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937) and, finally, won the girl (rather than being the "other man") in Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy Easy Living (1937). He also re-visited the tropics in Ebb Tide (1937), Her Jungle Love (1938) and Tropic Holiday (1938), as well as being one of the three valiant brothers of Beau Geste (1939).
In 1940, Ray was sent back to England to star in the screen adaptation of Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears (1940), for which he received his best critical reviews to date. He was top-billed (above John Wayne) running a ship salvage operation in Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Technicolor adventure drama Reap the Wild Wind (1942), besting Wayne in a fight - much to the "Duke's" personal chagrin - and later wrestling with a giant octopus. Also that year, he was directed by Billy Wilder in a charming comedy, The Major and the Minor (1942) (co-starred with Ginger Rogers), for which he garnered good notices from Bosley Crowther of the New York Times. Ray then played a ghost hunter in The Uninvited (1944), and the suave hero caught in a web of espionage in Fritz Lang's thriller Ministry of Fear (1944).
On the strength of his previous role as "Major Kirby", Billy Wilder chose to cast Ray against type in the ground-breaking drama The Lost Weekend (1945) as dipsomaniac writer "Don Birnam". Ray gave the defining performance of his career, his intensity catching critics, used to him as a lightweight leading man, by surprise. Crowther commented "Mr. Milland, in a splendid performance, catches all the ugly nature of a 'drunk', yet reveals the inner torment and degradation of a respectable man who knows his weakness and his shame" (New York Times, December 3, 1945). Arrived at the high point of his career, Ray Milland won the Oscar for Best Actor, as well as the New York Critic's Award. Rarely given such good material again, he nonetheless featured memorably in many more splendid films, often exploiting the newly discovered "darker side" of his personality: as the reporter framed for murder by Charles Laughton's heinous publishing magnate in The Big Clock (1948); as the sophisticated, manipulating art thief "Mark Bellis" in the Victorian melodrama So Evil My Love (1948) (for which producer Hal B. Wallis sent him back to England); as a Fedora-wearing, Armani-suited "Lucifer", trawling for the soul of an honest District Attorney in Alias Nick Beal (1949); and as a traitorous scientist in The Thief (1952), giving what critics described as a "sensitive" and "towering" performance. In 1954, Ray played calculating ex-tennis champ "Tony Wendice", who blackmails a former Cambridge chump into murdering his wife, in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1954). He played the part with urbane sophistication and cold detachment throughout, even in the scene of denouement, calmly offering a drink to the arresting officers.
With Lisbon (1956), Ray Milland moved into another direction, turning out several off-beat, low-budget films with himself as the lead, notably High Flight (1957), The Safecracker (1958) and Panic in Year Zero! (1962). At the same time, he cheerfully made the transition to character parts, often in horror and sci-fi outings. In accordance with his own dictum of appearing in anything that had "any originality", he worked on two notable pictures with Roger Corman: first, as a man obsessed with catalepsy in The Premature Burial (1962); secondly, as obsessed self-destructive surgeon "Dr. Xavier" in X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)-the Man with X-Ray Eyes, a film which, despite its low budget, won the 1963 Golden Asteroid in the Trieste Festival for Science Fiction.
As the years went on, Ray gradually disposed of his long-standing toupee, lending dignity through his presence to many run-of-the-mill television films, such as Cave in! (1983) and maudlin melodramas like Love Story (1970). He guest-starred in many anthology series on television and had notable roles in Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969) and the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) (as Quorum member Sire Uri). He also enjoyed a brief run on Broadway, starring as "Simon Crawford" in "Hostile Witness" (1966), at the Music Box Theatre.
In his private life, Ray was an enthusiastic yachtsman, who loved fishing and collecting information by reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica. In later years, he became very popular with interviewers because of his candid spontaneity and humour. In the same self-deprecating vein he wrote an anecdotal biography, "Wide-Eyed in Babylon", in 1976. A film star, as well as an outstanding actor, Ray Milland died of cancer at the age of 79 in March 1986.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Christopher Monger has won awards for directing theatre, feature films, and screenwriting. He has directed eight feature films and written over thirty screenplays.
He was born in Ffynnon Taf, Wales and started making films while studying painting at the Chelsea School of Art, London. His graduation short, a comic rendering of 8th C Chinese poet Han Shan, "Cold Mountain", was the opening film of the first ever British Festival of Independent Film in 1974.
After graduating he returned to Wales and was a founding member of the Chapter Film Workshop - a full production facility that allowed local talent to make films. In its first five years the workshop produced eight feature films and over fifty shorts.
Monger made his first no-budget features there including the controversial "Voice Over" (1981) which played festivals and was sold throughout the world.
At the same time he was film and video-maker for the avant-garde theatre company Moving Being, regularly touring throughout Western Europe.
After the success of "Voice Over" he moved to Los Angeles to work with producer Ed Pressman of 'Badlands' fame.
His produced credits include: "The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain", for Miramax Films, starring Hugh Grant, Colm Meaney & Tara Fitzgerald; "Waiting For The Light" starring Shirley McLaine & Teri Garr; "Crime Pays" for Film Four International, starring Ronnie Williams & Veronica Quilligan; and "Voice Over" starring Ian McNeice.
He also wrote the extraordinarily popular and record-breaking television film "Seeing Red" for Granada and WGBH, for which he received a Christopher Award; and wrote and directed "Girl From Rio" which won the Hollywood Film Festival.
He is currently adapting Jonathan's Harr's 'The Lost Painting' for Miramax Films. Apart from his film work he still paints and is a member of the PHARMAKA group of painters in Los Angeles..
Most recently he directed and edited Special Thanks to Roy London (2005), a documentary produced by his partner Karen Montgomery.
He is still a painter and as active member of the Los Angeles group PHARMAKA who run a gallery in Downtown L.A.- Producer
- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Geraint Morris was born on 28 March 1941 in Wales, UK. He was a producer and director, known for Casualty (1986), The Onedin Line (1971) and Softly Softly: Task Force (1969). He died on 12 July 1997 in Gloucestershire, England, UK.- Writer
- Director
- Actress
Directors born in Zambia and willing to bear witness on this country are something of a rarity. This is nonetheless the case of Rungano Nyoni, a young woman whose native town is Lusaka although she did not stay there long. She was indeed still a little girl when she emigrated to Great Britain with her parents. It is in Wales that Rongano actually grew up and from Birmingham University that she graduated... only to study drama at the London University of Arts. But an actress she was not destined to be (she played in only three films), as she proved thereafter. More interested in directing and writing (doesn't Rungano mean 'story-telling'), she turned to film making from 2009 on. The five shorts that bear her signature were selected in many festivals throughout the world and were multi-awarded. Two of them were filmed in her native Zambia, which is also the setting of her excellent first feature "I Am Not a Witch" (2017), where she narrates, in a half-quizzical half-poetic tone, the misadventures of a nine-year girl arbitrarily accused of being a witch. An internationally acclaimed work that reveals Nyoni's talent to a wide audience while at the same time bringing little known Zambia to the fore.- Composer
- Director
- Actor
Gruff Rhys was born on 18 July 1970 in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. He is a composer and director, known for Set Fire to the Stars (2014), American Interior (2014) and The Social Network (2010).- Director
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- Producer
A graduate of The National Film School, Julian Richards wrote and directed three short films; Pirates (1987) (The Starting Out Award at The Celtic Film Festival), Queen Sacrifice (1988) (Best Film at the British Short Film Festival) and Bad Company (1992) (AFI Film Festival official selection). Their success led to employment at the BBC where Richards directed doc-drama A Mutter of Voices (1994) about genocide in Rwanda and Channel 4 Television where he directed twelve episodes of Liverpool soap Brookside (1982). In 1994 Richards was hired by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment to adapt the novel "Calling All Monsters" to screenplay. Two years later he returned to the UK to write and direct his debut feature Darklands (1996), a conspiracy horror about paganism and human sacrifice (Melies D'Argent for Best European Fantasy Film 1997). Richards second feature, conspiracy thriller Silent Cry (2002) was awarded The Gold Remi at Worldfest Houston and his third feature The Last Horror Movie (2003) won The Melies D'Argent for Best European Fantasy Film 2005 . Richards followed up with coming-of-age thriller Summer Scars (2007) which won two BAFTA Cymru Awards and Charles Dickens's England (2009) starring Sir Derek Jacobi in a documentary about the life of iconic British author Charles Dickens. In 2011 Richards returned to the US to direct Shiver (2012), a psychological thriller starring Danielle Harris and John Jarratt for Image Entertainment. In 2017 Richards directed psychological horror Daddy's Girl (2018) starring Costas Mandylor and Jemma Dallender which won Best Director at Fantasporto, and in 2018 he directed paranormal horror Reborn (2018) starring Barbara Crampton, Michael Pare and Chaz Bono which won 15 awards including Best Sci-Fi Feature at Another Hole In The Head. In 2019 Richards directed the Bad Santa segment in Christmas horror anthology Deathcember (2019)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Craig Roberts is one of the most interesting, diverse and exciting young actors working today. He is known for his breakout role in Submarine, for which he won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Actor, the London Critics Circle Film Award for Young British Performer of the Year, in addition to being nominated at the 2011 British Independent Film Awards for Most Promising Newcomer and at the 2012 Empire Awards for Best Male Newcomer. Additional notable film credits include Kill Your Friends, Bad Neighbors, The Double, 22 Jump Street, Premature, Jane Eyre, The First Time, A Bright Day, Red Lights and Benny & Jolene, as well as television credits including ALT, Being Human, Skins, In Love with Coward, Young Dracula and The Story of Tracy Beaker.- Producer
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- Writer
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Sara Sugarman was born in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales, UK. Sara is an actor and director, known for Vinyl (2012), Very Annie Mary (2001) and Sid and Nancy (1986). Sara was previously married to David Thewlis.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Paul Turner was born on 30 December 1945 in Cornwall, England, UK. He was a director and writer, known for Hedd Wyn (1992), Pork Pie (1998) and Wild Justice (1994). He was married to Sue Roderick and Sheila Ford. He died on 1 November 2019 in Cardiff, Wales, UK.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Born George Emlyn Williams in Pen-y-Ffordd, Mostyn, Flintshire in northeast Wales on November 1905, he lived in a rural village in which Welsh was spoken until he was 12 years old, when his family moved to an English-speaking town, Connah's Quay. It changed the course of his life, as it was there that the teacher, Sarah Grace Cooke, recognizing his literary talent, encouraged him and helped him win a scholarship to Oxford, where he attended the college of Christ Church. She is immortalized in the character of "Miss Moffat" in his play, "The Corn is Green".
Education enabled him to escape the life at hard labor that was the lot of his people. He attended Christ Church, Oxford and also studied in Geneva, Switzerland. He joined a repertory theater and made his acting debut in "And So To Bed" in London in November, 1927. He eventually became an accomplished stage and screen actor, but it was as a playwright that he had his greatest success, eventually writing a score of plays.
He had his first theatrical success as a writer with "A Murder Has Been Arranged". The success of his 1935 play "Night Must Fall", which opened at London's Duchess Theatre, led to its being transferred to New York the following year. Williams had made his Broadway debut in 1927, as a 21-year-old in "And So To Bed", a comedy based on the diaries of Samuel Pepys (the title comes from how Pepys ended his diary entries; Pepys was the subject of a 1983 TV movie Pepys and So to Bed (1983)), and had appeared again on Broadway in Edgar Wallace's "Criminal at Large" in 1932. Opening on September 23, 1936 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the play ran for 64 performances. It was made into a movie twice, in 1937 with Robert Montgomery in the lead role of the young psychopath, and later, in 1964, with Albert Finney taking over the role.
Walking around for two years with the head of a woman in a hat box, Williams recalled in 1965, likely was the reason that Sir Alexander Korda hired him for the part of "Caligula" in the 1937 version of Robert Graves's I, Claudius (1937), famous as "The Epic That Never Was", in which Charles Laughton was cast as the fourth Roman Emperor of the Julian-Claudian dynasty. The production was canceled after leading lady Merle Oberon got into a car accident.
"The Corn Is Green" was a Broadway triumph for the great Ethel Barrymore in 1940, and the 1945 film adaptation starred Bette Davis, as well as John Dall and Joan Lorring in Oscar-nominated performances. Katharine Hepburn later played the part of "Miss Moffat" in the 1979 TV movie directed by George Cukor, for which she won an Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special.
Williams' plays "Yesterday's Magic", "The Morning Star" and "Someone Waiting" were also performed on Broadway, and he had a success on the Great White Way as an actor, himself, in a solo performance as Charles Dickens, which he revived twice. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for "A Boy Growing Up" (1958), an adaptation of a work by fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas. The tribal Williams also nurtured the young Welshman Richard Burton, whom he directed in his first lead film role in Woman of Dolwyn (1949). (Burton's professional stage debut had been in Williams' play "Druid's Rest", and Emyln Williams' son, Brook Williams, became one of Burton's life-long friends). Williams was the godfather to his Burton's daughter, Kate Burton, who is also an actress. In addition to directing and acting in film, Emlyn Williams famously collaborated with the great director Alfred Hitchcock. Williams acted in and wrote additional dialog for both the original The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) (1934) and Jamaica Inn (1939).
Emlyn Williams wrote two memoirs, "George, An Early Autobiography" (1961), and "Emlyn: An Early Autography, 1927-1935" (1974), as well as a 1967 non-fiction account of the Moors Murders entitled "Beyond Belief". His 1980 novel "Headlong" was adapted by David S. Ward into the movie King Ralph (1991). He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1962.
When he died in 1987, Emlyn Williams had written or co-written 20 screenplays in addition to his 20 plays. As an actor, he had appeared in 41 films and teleplays, plus made numerous appearances on stage.