Christopher Miles
| Christopher Miles | |
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Christopher Miles on location in 2013 for The Lost Girl
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| Born | Christopher John Miles 19 April 1939 London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques, Paris |
| Occupation | Film director, producer and writer |
| Years active | 1962–present |
| Spouse(s) | Susan Helen Howard Armstrong (1967–present) |
| Children | 1 |
Christopher Miles (born 19 April 1939) is a British film director, producer and screenwriter.
Miles was born in London, England, the eldest of four children to ‘Wren’, a councillor, and John Miles, a consulting engineer, whose family had been in the steel industry for several generations. Two engineers named Miles are on a plinth in Yarm, commemorating the , from to Darlington in 1825.
At age 16, while still at Winchester College (1953–57), Miles became the first person to show 8mm film on television (6 April 1957), at the invitation of the BBC’s children’s program All Your Own. During this time he helped produce and write a variety entertainment, The Begmilian Show, in which his sister Sarah Miles first performed publicly.
At age 19, under suspicion of being a spy, he was imprisoned in Communist China for filming in Chinwangtao. In fact he was making his first commissioned film for the owner of the Silver Line, and was released from prison after 20 hours of non-stop questioning. Miles' film footage, which was some of the first from behind the ‘Bamboo Curtain', was later sold to Movietone News.
After six months at Stewarts & Lloyds Steel Works in Corby, he decided to study film direction at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (1961 - 62) in Paris. During the summer vacation, he wrote and directed A Vol d'Oiseau (1962) a half-hour film, which was shown at Studio 28, a Parisian cinema.
In 1967 Miles married the painter Suzy Armstrong in Chelsea, where they lived until 1993 when they moved to Wiltshire Their daughter Sophie is a painter and potter. In 2009 Miles organized and raised funds for the restoration of the 1707 Royal Coat of Arms, in their local church.
Miles is Patron of the Christopher Marlowe Society, and helped raise money in 2002 for a window in Westminster Abbey in memory of the great Elizabethan poet and playwright. He is also Vice President of the D.H. Lawrence Society; as well as a committee member of Marbles Reunited, which was created to reunite the sculptures taken from the Parthenon temple in Athens by Lord Elgin.
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