Jack Gold

Jack Gold (born on 28 June 1930) is a British film and television director. He was part of the British Realist Tradition that followed Free Cinema.

Career

Gold was born in London, and was educated at University College London (UCL). After leaving UCL, he began his career as an editor on BBC's Tonight programme. Gold became a freelance documentary filmmaker, also making dramas as a platform for his social and political observations.

He is best known for having directed films such as; The Visit (1959), The National Health (1973), The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Man Friday (1975), The Medusa Touch (1978), Charlie Muffin (1979) aka A Deadly Game (USA), The Chain (1985) and Escape From Sobibor (1987).

His other works include the televised BBC/Lifetime version of The Merchant of Venice (1980) and Macbeth (1983) -- the latter starring Nicol Williamson -- as well as the rare but effective made-for-TV adaptation of Graham Greene's The Tenth Man (1988), starring Anthony Hopkins. He also directed an award winning adaption of the 1987 children's book Goodnight Mister Tom (1998) starring John Thaw.

Gold directed the final episode of Inspector Morse. Other work includes the television drama series Kavanagh QC and The Brief.

Personal life

Gold is married to actor Denyse Alexander, with whom he shares a birthday (born one year apart on 28 June 1930 and 1931). Gold's nephew Ricky Paull Goldin is also an actor.

Filmography

• My Father Knew Lloyd George (1965)
• The World of Coppard (1968)
• The Bofors Gun (1968)
• The Reckoning (1969)
• Stoker Leishman's Diaries (1972)
• The Gangster Show: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1972)
• Conflict (1973) (also released as Catholics).
• The National Health (1973)
• Who? (1973)
• Man Friday (1975)
• The Naked Civil Servant (1975)
• Aces High (1976)
• The Medusa Touch (1978)
• The Sailor's Return (1978)
• Charlie Muffin (1979)
• Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
• The Merchant of Venice (1980)
• Praying Mantis (1983)
• Macbeth (1983)
• Good and Bad at Games (1983)
• Red Monarch (1983)
• The Chain (1984)
• Sakharov (1984)
• Me and the Girls (1985)
• Murrow (1986)
• Escape from Sobibor (1987)
• Stones for Ibarra (1988)
• The Tenth Man (1988)
• Ball Trap on the Cote Sauvage (1989)
• The Rose and the Jackal (1990)
• The War That Never Ends (1991)
• She Stood Alone (1991)
• Der Fall Lucona (1993)
• Spring Awakening (1994)
• The Return of the Native (1994)
• Heavy Weather (1995)
• Into the Blue (1997)
• Goodnight Mister Tom (1998)

References

Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, ed. Ian Aitken. London: Routledge (2005)

External links

• Jack Gold at the Internet Movie Database