Richard Attenborough Archives - Big Gay Picture Show

Richard Attenborough, the famed actor and director has passed away aged 90, it’s been revealed. His film career started in the early 1940s, and indeed even when he signed up to serve in the RAF in World War II he was soon seconded to the film unit, to help make British propaganda movies.

His biggest early breakthrough came in 1947, playing Pinkie Brown in the film version of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, recreating a role he’d played on the stage on 1942. He was a popular British star through the 50s, 60s and 70s, starring in the likes of Private’s Progress (1956) and I’m All Right Jack (1959), The Great Escape (1963), The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965) and 10 Rillington Place (1971).

However in 1979 he decided to put acting to one side and concentrate on directing. He’d already had some success with the likes of Oh! What A Lovely War! (1969), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Magic (1978), but it was his next movie that moved him to a new level, with Attenborough moving heaven and earth to get Gandhi (1982) made. The resulting film won eight Oscars, including a Best Director gong for David.

He later directed the likes of A Chorus Line, Cry Freedom, Chaplin and Shadowlands.

In the 1990s he became known to a new, younger generation when he agreed to return to the screen to play John Hammond in 1993’s Jurassic Park. It must have given him the bug, as through the 1990s and early 2000s he had several other on-screen appearances in the likes of The Miracle On 34th Street and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet.

Sadly though he’d been in declining health for several years and sadly died on Sunday.

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DIRECTORS: Richard Attenborough

Rolls-Royce is already famed around the world for producing some of the most luxurious cars on the planet, but it seems Martin Scorsese thinks there’s more of interest about the company than that, as Variety reports that he’s teaming up with Richard Attenborough and Anthony Haas to produce a film called Silver Ghost, which will tell the story of how Charles Rolls and Henry Royce partnered up to create the car company.

Silver Ghost is described as a complex love story, not only between men and women, but men and machines. Set at the turn of the last century, it traces the story of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, as well as the love affairs of the famed Beaulieu family (who started up the famed motor museum). Apparently one of the members of that family called the story a long-gestating ‘family secret’ but felt Scorsese, Attenborough and Haas would do the story justice and so have given them permission to go with it, although Variety doesn’t say exactly what that secret it.

Scorsese comments, “When I read the story of Silver Ghost, I was mesmerised. I immediately thought, ‘This is a picture that has to be made.’ And when I was asked to come aboard as a producer alongside Richard Attenborough and Anthony Haas, I didn’t hesitate for a moment.”

At the moment there’s no sign Scorsese will also direct, but it’s always a possibility, nor is there any indication when the movie might shoot.