Carol Reed

Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director, winner of an Academy Award for his film version of the musical, Oliver! (1968).

An illegitimate son of actor-producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, May Pinney Reed, Carol Reed was born in Putney, London, and educated at The King's School, Canterbury.

Reed served in the British Army during the Second World War, giving him many experiences which appeared in his later films. He embarked on an acting career while still in his teens, but soon went into the role of producer/director, and was responsible for Kipps (1941), Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), Our Man in Havana (1959), and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), becoming a prime essayist of film versions of the novels of Graham Greene.

From 1943 until 1947, he was married to the elegant British film star Diana Wynyard. After their divorce, he married, in 1948, the actress Penelope Dudley Ward, the elder daughter of Freda Dudley Ward, who had been a mistress of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and Duke of Windsor. They had one son, Max, and a nephew was the actor Oliver Reed. His stepdaughter, Miss Ward's daughter, Tracy Reed, acted in numerous films, notably as the only woman in Dr. Strangelove.

In 1953, he became the first British film director to be knighted for his craft.

Carol Reed died from a heart attack on 25 April 1976 at his home in Chelsea, London at the age of 69.