Mike Newell (director)

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Mike Newell

Michael Cormac Newell (born 28 March 1942) is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television.

Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Newell was educated at St Albans School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He then attended a three year training course at Granada Television, with the intention of entering the theatre.

Newell directed various British TV shows from the 1960s onwards. However, he eventually graduated into film direction and then he went on to make the horror film The Awakening (1980) and Bad Blood (1981) about a New Zealand mass murderer.

His first film was The Man in the Iron Mask (1977), made for TV. His first critically acclaimed movie was Dance with a Stranger (1985), a biographical drama starring Miranda Richardson as Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Great Britain. For his directing efforts, Newell won the Award of the Youth at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

Newell continued his successes in the film industry with Enchanted April (1992), an adaptation of the 1922 novel The Enchanted April; Miranda Richardson received a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical and Joan Plowright won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy/Musical.

The comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) was also critically acclaimed – it won numerous awards, including a César Award (Best Foreign Film), a Golden Globe (Best Actor - Hugh Grant), and a few London Critics Circle Film Awards (Best Director, Film, Producer, and Screenwriter).

Since these award-winning productions, Newell has directed a number of Hollywood films, though none has been a major success. He directed Donnie Brasco (1997) (starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp), Pushing Tin (1999) (starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003) (starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles).

In 2005, Newell became the first British director of the Harry Potter film series, on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The series previous directors, Chris Columbus and Alfonso Cuarón, were American and Mexican respectively. The film was the fourth instalment of the series and was a major success worldwide. The film was also the third time Newell had worked with actress Miranda Richardson.

In 2005, Newell was presented with an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts by the University of Hertfordshire which has a campus in St Albans, his birthplace.