Guy Hamilton
| Guy Hamilton | |
|---|---|
| Born |
16 September 1922 Paris, France |
| Died | 20 April 2016 (aged 93) Majorca, Spain |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1938–1989 |
| Spouse(s) |
Naomi Chance Kerima |
Mervyn Ian Guy Hamilton, DSC (16 September 1922 – 20 April 2016) was an English film director. He directed 22 films from the 1950s to the 1980s, including four James Bond films.
Hamilton was born in Paris on 16 September 1922, where his English parents were living, and attended school in England. His first exposure to the film industry came in 1938 when he was a clapperboard boy at the Victorine Studios in Nice. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Hamilton escaped from France by the MV Saltersgate, a collier bound for French North Africa with one of the other 500 refugees aboard being W. Somerset Maugham. Travelling from Oran to Gibraltar then arriving in London, he worked in the film library at Paramount News before being commissioned in the Royal Navy serving in the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla, a unit that ferried agents into France and brought downed British pilots back to England. During this service he was left behind for a month in occupied Brittany; he was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Shortly after the war, Hamilton returned to the film industry as an assistant director on three Carol Reed films: The Fallen Idol (1948); The Third Man (1949), in which Hamilton doubled for Orson Welles in a couple of shots; and Outcast of the Islands (1951). Hamilton held Reed in high esteem and it was Reed who was instrumental in getting Hamilton his first position as director, on the B-movie The Ringer (1952).
Hamilton spent the early part of the 1950s creating films focused on military stories such as The Intruder (1953, his second film as director) dealing with soldiers returning to civilian life, and the prisoner of war story The Colditz Story (1955), which was Hamilton's high grossing movie of the decade. He also served as an assistant director on the film The African Queen (1951).
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