Peter Medak

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Peter Medak (December 23, 1937) is a Hungarian-born film director of British and American films.

He was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family, but in 1956 fled his native country for England due to the Hungarian Revolution. There he began a career in the film business, starting as a trainee and gradually rising until he became a film director. He was signed to direct television films for MCA Universal Pictures in 1963. In 1967 he signed with Paramount Pictures to make feature films. His first feature was Negatives, released in 1968.

Since then he has experienced an uneven career, producing some significant successes and a number of what were considered commercial failures. Some of his most notable works are: The Ruling Class (1972); The Changeling (1980); The Krays (1990), written by the artist and dramatist Philip Ridley; and Let Him Have It (1991). He has also directed a number of television episodes and movies, including the The Feast of All Saints mini-series in 2001. In 2002 he directed two episodes of the HBO drama The Wire.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] He also directed an episode of Carnivàle for HBO in 2003.^[5]

Medak was married to his third wife opera singer Julia Migenes from 1988 to 2003. His first wife, with whom he had two children died tragically in London in the 1970s. He had two further children with his second wife, Caroline Seymour, an English actress, from whom he was divorced.