Michael Gill
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George Michael Gill (10 December 1923 - 20 October 2005) was a television producer and television director responsible for creating 'ground-breaking' documentaries for the BBC.
He was born in Winchester, Hampshire but was brought up in Canterbury. He contracted tuberculosis as a child which disrupted his education severely. He served in the RAF in Intelligence during the war. After the war he studied Philosophy and Psychology at Edinburgh University. After a period as a sub-editor and arts reviewer on The Scotsman, he joined the BBC. He worked first on radio but soon moved to television.
He is chiefly remembered for Civilisation: A Personal View (1969) (director and co-producer) and Alistair Cooke's America (1973) (director and producer). Although the idea for Civilisation and its presenter, Kenneth Clark, were given to Gill, 'America' and its presenter were entirely Gill's idea. In total Gill made more than 150 films for television and the cinema and won more than 40 major international awards.
In 1951 he married, Yvonne Gilan and had two sons. The marriage was dissolved and he married again in 1978, Georgina Denison, with whom he had a daughter. He died in London from Alzheimer's Disease.
