Frank Cottrell-Boyce
| Frank Cottrell-Boyce | |
|---|---|
Cottrell-Boyce, 2015 at international literature festival berlin
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| Born |
23 September 1959 Rainhill, Lancashire, England |
| Occupation | Scriptwriter, author |
| Period | ca. 1984–present |
| Genre | Screenplays, children's novels |
| Notable awards |
Carnegie Medal 2004 Guardian Prize 2012 |
Frank Cottrell-Boyce (born 23 September 1959) is an English screenwriter, novelist and occasional actor, known for his children's fiction and for his collaborations with film director Michael Winterbottom. He has achieved fame as the writer for the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony and for sequels to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, a children's classic by Ian Fleming.
Cottrell-Boyce has won two major British awards for children's books, the 2004 Carnegie Medal for Millions, which originated as a film script, and the 2012 Guardian Prize for The Unforgotten Coat, which was commissioned by a charity.
Cottrell-Boyce was born in 1959 Liverpool to a Catholic family. He attended nearby St Bartholomew's Primary School and West Park secondary.
He was an undergraduate at Keble College, Oxford and then completed a doctorate in English, also at Oxford University. He wrote criticism for the magazine Living Marxism. As a result, there was supposedly always a copy of the magazine on sale in the newsagent set of long-running British soap Coronation Street, while Cottrell Boyce was on the writing staff of that programme.
He is married and the father of seven children. He is also a patron of the Insight Film Festival, a biennial, interfaith festival held in Manchester, UK, to make positive contributions to understanding, respect and community cohesion.
After he met Michael Winterbottom, the two collaborated on Forget About Me. Winterbottom made five further films based on screenplays written by Cottrell Boyce, Butterfly Kiss, Welcome to Sarajevo, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People and Code 46. Their 2005 collaboration, A Cock and Bull Story, is their last according to Cottrell-Boyce, who asked that his contribution be credited to Martin Hardy, a pseudonym. He told Variety, "I just had to move on ... what better way to walk away than by giving Winterbottom a good script for free?"
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