Clive Donner
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Here you can learn about Clive Donner’s career and private life facts, read the latest news, find all the awards he has won and watch photos and videos.
PERSONAL DATA OF CLIVE DONNER
Born in: LONDON (Great Britain)
Born on: 21/01/1926
He dies at: LONDON (Great Britain)
CLIVE DONNER BIOGRAPHY
Director and editor. Born in the English capital, he spent his childhood in the West Hampstead neighborhood. His family has come from Poland for two generations and his father is a concert violinist, while his mother has a clothing shop. While still attending Kilburn Polytechnic, in 1943, he approached the film industry as an assistant in the editing room for Denham Studios. He finds the job by chance, accompanying his father to the studios to record the soundtrack of Powell and Pressburger ‘s “Duel in Berlin”. After his military service he was hired as an editor at Pinewood Studios where he collaborated on masterpieces such as “Madeleine’s Secret Love” (1950) by David Lean; Brian Desmond Hurst’s “The Gold Slave” (1951), in which actor Alastair Sim plays Dickens’ Scrooge; “Asso pigliatutto” (1952) by Ronald Neame with Alec Guinness and “The stranger” (1954) again by Neame, with a magnificent Gregory Peck. In the 1950s he began his career as a director at the same time, making some ‘low budget’ films. His debut in 1957 is “Diamond Hunt” with Belinda Lee and Ronald Lewis, followed the following year by “Heart of a Child”. In 1962 with “Some People” he tells of a group of bored teenagers who decide to form a rock band. In those years he also landed on television, making some episodes of the series “Danger Man” (1961) and “Sir Francis Drake” (1961-1962). In 1963 comes the turning point of his career with “The Caretaker: the guardian”, based on the comedy of the same name by Harold Pinter. Convinced of the project, to make the film Richard Burton, Noël Coward, Peter Sellers and Elizabeth Taylor, in addition to giving up their usual fees, they tax themselves at 1000 dollars each, signing an agreement to later divide the proceeds. The next film, “Corpse in the Cellar”, starring Alan Bates and Denholm Elliot, a biting satire on the English bourgeoisie, confirms his talent and turns out to be his master key for Hollywood. Having landed in America, in 1965 he shoots “Hello, Pussycat”, a comedy in which the psychoanalyst Peter Sellers finds himself collecting the confidences and frustrations of the womanizer Peter O’Toole, who tries with all his might to remain faithful to his girlfriend. played by a beautiful Romy Schneider, despite the provocations of the seductive Ursula Andress and Capucine. The film gets a great success at the box office and is praised, despite Woody Allen, author of the screenplay, deny it accusing Donner of having upset his ideas. “Luv means love?” with Peter Falk, Jack Lemmon and Elaine May, made two years later, it turns out to be a flop, but without losing heart, Clive throws himself headlong into a new project, “Alfredo the Great” (1969), starring David Hemmings . It is on the set of the film that he meets the costume designer Jocelyn Rickards, who becomes his wife in the same year and to whom he remains linked until her death in 2005. In the seventies, in the wake of Mel Brooks’ success with “Frankenstein junior” , launches into a new genre, the horror comedy, making “Vampira” (1975), but the film does not achieve the hoped-for success. Two years later the TV producer Gene Roddenberry, father of “Star Trek”, asked him to write the TV movie “Specter”, inaugurating a new cycle of experiences that continued in the 1980s with “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” “Oliver Twist” ( both from 1982) and “A Christmas Carol” (1984). In 1980, since the relationship between Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers is very strained and the two have no intention of working together, he is called to direct the new chapter of the Pink Panther series, “Romance of the Pink Panther”. Unfortunately, the film, co-written by Sellers and Jim Moloney, does not see the light due to the sudden death of the protagonist. The following year he is the director of “Charlie Chan and the curse of the dragon queen” which stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter Ustinov. His latest work, dated 1993, is the television miniseries “Carlo Magno”. Long suffering from Alzheimer’s, he died at the age of 84.
CLIVE DONNER’S MOST RECENT FILMS
Charlemagne (Charlemagne, le prince à cheval)
Role: Film director
Year: 1994
SCHWARZE HOCHZEIT
Role: Film director
Year: 1992
STEALING HEAVEN
Role: Film director
Year: 1988
A Christmas Carol
Role: Film director
Year: 1984 Go to Complete Filmography
THE MOST RECURRING GENRES OF CLIVE DONNER
Comedy: 29% Drama: 12% Fantasy: 8% Adventure: 8%
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