Tony Richardson

Around the same time he began to be active in Britain's Free Cinema movement, co-directing the non-fiction short Momma Don't Allow (also 1955) with Karel Reisz.

Part of the British "New Wave" of directors, he was involved in the formation of the English Stage Company, along with his close friend George Goetschius and George Devine. He directed John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre, and in the same period he directed Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. Read Less

In 1964 Richardson received two Academy Awards (Best Director and Best Picture) for Tom Jones (1963). The prestige that lent him led immediately to The Loved One, during which he worked with established stars such as John Gielgud, Rod Steiger and Robert Morse working in Hollywood both on location and on the sound stage. In his autobiography he confesses that he did not share the general admiration of Haskell Wexler, who worked on The Loved One as both director of photography and a producer.

The films of Richardson's mid-career had nothing in common beyond shrewd collaborations with very talented people. Among his acting stars were Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, David Hemmings, Nicol Williamson, Marianne Faithfull, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Mick Jagger, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield and Judi Dench. His musical composers included Antoine Duhamel, John Addison, and Shel Silverstein. His screenwriters were Jean Genet, Christopher Isherwood, Marguerite Duras, Edward Bond (adapting Vladimir Nabokov), and Edward Albee. Richardson and Osborne eventually fell out during production of the film Charge of the Light Brigade (1968). The basic issue was Osborne's unwillingness to go through the rewrite process, more arduous in film than it is in the theatre. Richardson himself had a different version. In his autobiography (p. 195) he writes that Osborne was angry at being replaced, in a small rôle, by Laurence Harvey to whom the producers had obligations. Read Less