Jack Clayton

Jack Clayton (March 1 1921–February 26 1995) was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.

Related Topics:
March 1 - 1921 - February 26 - 1995 - British - Film director

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Clayton started his career working for Alexander Korda's Denham Studios and rose from tea boy to assistant director to film editor. After service with the Royal Air Force during World War II, he became an associate producer on many of Korda's films, then directed the Oscar-winning short The Bespoke Overcoat (1956). His first feature was the internationally acclaimed Room at the Top, a harsh indictment of the British class system, which won two Oscars, earned Clayton a Best Director nomination, and was credited with spearheading Britain's movement toward realism in films.

Related Topics:
Alexander Korda - Royal Air Force - World War II - Oscar - The Bespoke Overcoat - 1956 - Room at the Top - Class system - Best Director - Realism

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Clayton followed with the classic ghost story The Innocents (1961), based on Henry James The Turn of the Screw, then laid back for several years, establishing a pattern he followed thereafter.

Related Topics:
The Innocents - 1961 - Henry James - The Turn of the Screw

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He directed The Pumpkin Eater in 1964, Our Mother's House in 1967, and then, seven years later, the high-profile American production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1974).

Related Topics:
The Pumpkin Eater - 1964 - Our Mother's House - 1967 - F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby - 1974

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Perhaps in response to its failure, he didn't take another assignment for nine years — the Disney studio production of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), which was another disappointment.

Related Topics:
Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes - 1983

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His last feature film, the British-made The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), featured a superb performance by Maggie Smith as a spinster who struggles with the emptiness of her life; it won Clayton critical plaudits for the first time in many years. He reteamed with Smith in 1992 for a television film, Memento Mori, which he also co-wrote.

Related Topics:
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne - 1987 - Maggie Smith - Spinster - 1992 - Memento Mori

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