Lewis Gilbert
| Lewis Gilbert | |
|---|---|
| Born |
6 March 1920 Hackney, London, England |
| Occupation | Film director, producer and screenwriter |
| Years active | 1934-2002 |
| Spouse(s) | Hylda Tafler (m. 1951–2005) (her death) |
| Children | 1 |
Lewis Gilbert, CBE (born 6 March 1920) is a British film director, producer and screenwriter, who has directed more than 40 films during six decades; among them such varied titles as Reach for the Sky (1956), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Alfie (1966), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989), as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).
Lewis Gilbert was born in Hackney, London, the son of a second-generation family of music hall performers, and spent his early years travelling with his parents, and watching the shows from the wings. He first performed on-stage at the age of 5, when asked to drive a trick car around the stage. This pleased the audience, so this became the end of his parents' act. When travelling on trains, his parents frequently hid him in the luggage rack, to avoid paying a fare for him. His father contracted tuberculosis when he was a young man. He died aged 34, when Gilbert was seven. As a child actor in films in the 1920s and 1930s, he was the breadwinner for his family, his mother was a film extra, and he had an erratic formal education. In 1933, at the age of 13, he had a role in Victor Hanbury and John Stafford's Dick Turpin, and at age 17 a small uncredited role in The Divorce of Lady X (1938) opposite Laurence Olivier. Alexander Korda offered to send him to RADA, but Gilbert chose to study direction instead, notably as an assistant on Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939).
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