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Anthony Asquith

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The Honourable
Anthony Asquith
Walter J. Turner, Asquith, Charles Percy Sanger and Mark Gertler, in a photo taken by Lady Ottoline Morrell
Born9 November 1902
London, England
Died20 February 1968(1968-02-20) (aged 65)
London, England
OccupationFilm director
Years active1927–1964
Parents

Anthony Asquith (/ˈæskwɪθ/; 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

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Born in London, 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.[1] He was educated at Eaton House,[2] 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.[3] 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.[1] 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.[4]

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.[5]

Asquith was an alcoholic and, according to actor Jonathan Cecil, a repressed homosexual. He died in 1968.[3] He was buried at All Saints Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire, England.[6]

Filmography

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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

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Short film

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References

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  1. ^ a b Anthony Asquith biography at BFI Screenonline
  2. ^ "Mr T.S. Morton". The Times. 23 January 1962.
  3. ^ a b Geoffrey Macnab "The Asquith version", The Guardian, 6 February 2003
  4. ^ Vagg, Stephen (1 December 2024). "Forgotten British Film Moguls: Ted Black". Filmink. Retrieved 1 December 2024.
  5. ^ Speed, F. Maurice, ed. (1968). Film Review 1968-1969. South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Company. p. 25.
  6. ^ "Asquith, Anthony (1902–1968))". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30479. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. ^ See also advertisement for its premiere in The Times, 14 December 1935, p. 11.
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Trade union offices
Preceded by
New position
 President of the Association of Cinematograph Technicians
1937–1968 		Succeeded by
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