Alex von Tunzelmann | |
|---|---|
 Tunzelmann in 2018 | |
| Born | 1977 (age 46–47) United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Historian Screenwriter Author Newspaper Columnist Podcaster |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Brighton and Hove High School |
| Alma mater | University College, Oxford |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Subject | Cold War British Empire |
Alex von Tunzelmann (born 1977) is a British popular historian, author, newspaper columnist, podcaster and screenwriter.
Tunzelmann has stated that her surname is of German ancestry originating in Saxony in Germany and that she has family connections from Estonia since 1600 and New Zealand since 1850. [1]
Tunzelmann was educated at Brighton and Hove High School, [2] an independent school for girls in Brighton, and at University College at the University of Oxford. She read history and edited both Cherwell and Isis .
From 2008 to 2016, Tunzelmann wrote a column for The Guardian entitled "Reel history", in which she discussed and rated popular films for their historical accuracy. [3] She has also written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller, the BBC News website, BBC Lonely Planet Magazine , the Financial Times and The Daily Beast .
Tunzelmann has written five non fiction popular history books [4]
She collaborated with Jeremy Paxman on his books The Political Animal and On Royalty . She also contributed to The Truth About Markets by John Kay, Does Education Matter? by Alison Wolf, and Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence.
Tunzelmann is the alternating co-host of the light-hearted British newspaper review podcast Paper Cuts. [7] For BBC Radio 4, she wrote and presented the series The Lucan Obsession series of The History Podcast [8] and also wrote the series History's Secret Heroes. [9]
She has also appeared on the literary discussion radio programme Litbits on Resonance FM, discussing literature and hair[ citation needed ]. She appears regularly on Sky News and on BBC current affairs programmes.
Tunzelmann wrote the script for the movie Churchill , a film that received mixed reviews. Churchillian biographer Andrew Roberts noted the irony that, "Ms. von Tunzelmann—who once had a column in The Guardian that attacked movies for their historical errors—has twisted the truth about Churchill". [10] Matthew Norman in the Evening Standard acknowledged that despite the films "fancifulness", it was "an interesting and original study of a magnificent but unsaintly man raging in the dark against the dying of the light". [11]
She also wrote episodes of the RAI period drama Medici , focusing on the powerful Florentine family.
Tunzelmann was recognized by the Financial Times as Young Business Writer of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Wolfson History Prize [12] for Fallen Idols.
Philippa Gregory is an English historical novelist who has been publishing since 1987. The best known of her works is The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), which in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been adapted into two films.
Jon Ronson is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is known for works such as Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004), and The Psychopath Test (2011).
Andrew Collins is an English writer and broadcaster. He is the creator and writer of the Radio 4 sitcom Mr Blue Sky. His TV writing work includes EastEnders and the sitcoms Grass and Not Going Out. Collins has also worked as a music, television and film critic.
Churchill: The Hollywood Years is a 2004 British comedy film directed by Peter Richardson, who also wrote the screenplay with Pete Richens. The film stars Christian Slater as Winston Churchill, and Neve Campbell as Elizabeth II. Miranda Richardson and Antony Sher also co-star.
Deborah Ann Barham was an English comedy writer who died at the age of 26 of heart failure brought on as a result of anorexia. As well as writing for TV and radio, Barham wrote columns for newspapers and magazines.
Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell OBE is a Scottish broadcaster and journalist. He has worked in television and radio since 1981 and as a network presenter with BBC Radio since 1987.
Julia Davis is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night (2004–2005) and the comedies Hunderby (2012–2015) and Camping (2016), which she also directed.
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter, author and podcaster. He is the co-presenter, with Ellen E. Jones, of the BBC Radio 4 programme Screenshot and co-presenter of the film-review podcast Kermode & Mayo's Take, alongside long-time collaborator Simon Mayo. Kermode is a regular contributor to The Observer, for which he was chief film critic between September 2013 and September 2023.
The Scarlet Empress is a 1934 American historical drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and John Lodge about the life of Catherine the Great. It was directed and produced by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Eleanor McGeary, loosely based on the diary of Catherine arranged by Manuel Komroff.
That Hamilton Woman, also known as Lady Hamilton, is a 1941 black-and-white historical film drama produced and directed by Alexander Korda for his British company during his exile in the United States. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of Emma Hamilton, dance-hall girl and courtesan, who married Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, and later became Admiral Horatio Nelson's mistress.
Gerald Clarke is an American writer, best known for the biographies Capote (1988) and Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland (2000).
David Reynolds, is a British historian. He is Emeritus Professor of International History at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.
Amanda Jane Vickery is an English historian, writer, radio and television presenter, and professor of early modern history at Queen Mary, University of London.
Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean is a historical study of the political scene in the Caribbean during the 1950s and 1960s, written by the British historian Alex von Tunzelmann and first published in 2011 by Henry Holt and Company. Educated at Oxford University, Von Tunzelmann (1977-) had previously published a study of the independence of India, entitled Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007).
Zoe Strimpel is a British columnist and commentator. Strimpel writes opinion columns for The Sunday Telegraph. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4's A Point Of View and presents a podcast on culture called Hyped! with the historian Tom Stammers.
The Girl is a 2012 British television film directed by Julian Jarrold, written by Gwyneth Hughes and produced by the BBC and HBO Films. The film stars Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren and Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock. It is based on Donald Spoto's 2009 book Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, which discusses the English film director Hitchcock and the women who played leading roles in his films. The Girl's title was inspired by Hitchcock's alleged nickname for Hedren.
Hayley Squires is an English actress and playwright, best known for her work in the Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake. Squires has also appeared in Call the Midwife (2012), Southcliffe (2013), Complicit (2013), Blood Cells (2014), A Royal Night Out (2015) and Murder (2016). Her first play, Vera Vera Vera, was produced by the Royal Court Theatre in 2012.
Churchill is a 2017 British historical war-drama film directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, which portrays Winston Churchill in June 1944 – especially in the hours leading up to D-Day. The film stars Brian Cox as the title character, with Miranda Richardson and John Slattery in supporting roles.
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill is a 2016 book by Candice Millard covering Winston Churchill's exploits during the Boer War. Her third book, Hero of the Empire garnered favorable response by major newspaper companies worldwide and was a winner of the 2017 Kansas Notable Book Awards.
Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History (2021), is a book authored by Alex von Tunzelmann and published by Headline Publishing Group in response to the removal or defacement of statues during the George Floyd protests of 2020. In it, von Tunzelmann explores the stories of twelve statues or groups of statues of historical figures, including the contexts in which they were erected, the reasons for which they later became contentious, and the circumstances leading to their removal, destruction or vandalism.
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