Hugh Hudson

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Hugh Hudson

Born	August 25, 1936 (1936-08-25) (age 71) London, England, UK
Occupation	Film director and film producer

Hugh Hudson (born 25 August 1936) at 27 Welbeck Street,in what was then the London Welbeck Hospital, is an Anglo-Scottish Academy Award-nominated film director.

1 Biography
2 Filmography as director
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Hudson was born in London, the elder son of Michael Donaldson-Hudson and Jacynth Ellerton from a family of affluent landowners at Cheswardine Hall, Shropshire. He was sent to boarding school at the age of about 7 and thereafter he was educated at Eton. He is the only son of Michael Donaldson-Hudson?

In the sixties Hudson headed a documentary film company with partners Robert Brownjohn and David Camell, producing, amongst others, award winning documentaries "A for Apple" and "The Tortoise and the Hare". He then embarked on a rewarding career in advertising, producing, alongside fellow British director Ridley Scott, many prizewinning adverts. This allowed him entrance to the world of film-making; his first job was as a second-unit director on Alan Parker's Midnight Express.

Catching the eye of producer David Puttnam, Hudson was put in charge of what is now regarded as his most accomplished and well-known film, Chariots of Fire (1981), the story of two British track runners, one a devout Christian and the other an ambitious Jew, in the run-up to the 1924 Olympic Games. The film is said to have revitalized the fading British film industry, and it won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Hudson earned a nomination for Best Director.

After this success, Hudson's later productions included Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), and the notorious flop Revolution (1985), which depicted the American War of Independence, and which jeopardised what could have been a prosperous career in Hollywood for Hudson.

In 1988 he directed a 2½ minute advert for British Rail, a parody of the Post Office Film Unit's 25 minute documentary, 'Night Mail', made in 1936. The much loved poet W. H. Auden wrote his famous verse specifically to fit the film's footage, that cleverly showed the enormous scale of BR's daily operation and the structure of the 'sectorised' business - Parcels, Railfreight, InterCity, Provincial and Network SouthEast. The opening sequence features the northbound Travelling Post Office with Auden's original verse, narrated by Sir Tom Courtenay. Auden's unique poetic style is then developed to underlay the freight, passenger and station film sequences. The footage includes many of the railway's iconic structures including the Tyne, Forth and Saltash Bridges as well as the latest rolling stock, including the Wessex Electrics, introduced in May 1988. It was very expensive both to make and to 'air' and an abridged 90 second version was edited down to allow more extensive exposure. Music by Vangelis.

In 2006 he was reported to be working on an historical epic based on the life of the monotheistic Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti .^[1] The film centres around their tempestuous relationship.

He is planning to direct an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's book Norwegian Wood in the near future.^{[citation needed]}

He is in active development of a film adaptation of George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", to star Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Gerard Depardieu

His first marriage was with painter Susan Michie at the Chelsea Register Office on 25th August 1977. In November 2003, he married actress Maryam d'Abo.

August 2007: in Nimes, France, “Un Realisateur dans la Ville”, a festival created by Gerard Depardieu and Jean Claude Carriere to showcase the work of one director, featured the work of Hugh Hudson, showing eight films over 5 days and premiered an Al Pacino narrated version of “Revolution” called “Revolution Re-visited”