Sir Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is a British director and producer of film and television, often depicting real life stories as well as projects that explore social class through sharply-drawn characters. He has received numerous accolades including three BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph named Frears among the 100 most influential people in British culture.[1] In 2009, he received the Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He received a knighthood in 2023 for his contributions to the film and television industries.[2]
Frears was born on 20 June 1941[3] in Leicester, England.[4] His mother, Ruth M. (née Danziger), was a social worker, and his father, Russell E. Frears, was a general practitioner and accountant.[4] Frears was brought up Anglican. He did not learn that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s.[5][6][7]
With Finney's company Memorial Productions, Frears made The Burning,[10] a 31-minute adaptation of a short story by Roland Starke. Although set in South Africa, it was filmed in Tangier. It was released theatrically attached to François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black.[11]
Frears spent most of his early directing career in television, mainly for the BBC but also for the commercial sector. He contributed to several anthology series, such as the BBC's Play for Today. He also produced a series of Alan Bennett's plays for LWT, including The Old Crowd (1979, director: Lindsay Anderson).[12] His directorial film debut was the noir detective spoof Gumshoe (1971).
In the late 1980s, Frears came to international attention as a director of feature films. In 1985, Frears found widespread acclaim with My Beautiful Laundrette. Based on Hanif Kureishi's screenplay, the film focuses on an interracial gay romance. It received an Academy Award nomination and two nominations for BAFTA Awards. The success of the film helped launch the careers of both Frears and actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
In 1992, Frears directed the comedy drama Hero, released in the United Kingdom as Accidental Hero. The film starred Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy Garcia, and Joan Cusack. Many critics compared the film to those of Preston Sturges and Frank Capra, as did Roger Ebert, who wrote, "It [the film] has all the ingredients for a terrific entertainment, but it lingers over the kinds of details that belong in a different kind of movie. It comes out of the tradition of those rat-a-tat Preston Sturges comedies of the 1940s."[13] While the film was met with generally positive critical reviews, it was not a box office success. Columbia Pictures lost $25.6 million.[14]
In 2000, Frears directed High Fidelity starring John Cusack, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, and Joan Cusack. The film is based on the 1995 British novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. It is set in Chicago rather than London, and the name of the lead character was changed. After seeing the film, Hornby expressed his happiness with Cusack's performance, saying that "at times, it appears to be a film in which John Cusack reads my book".[15]
The film received positive reviews from critics and has a score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 165 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The critical consensus states: "The deft hand of director Stephen Frears and strong performances by the ensemble cast combine to tell an entertaining story with a rock-solid soundtrack."[16]
In 2003, Frears was attached to direct the James Bond spin-off Jinx, featuring Halle Berry as her character from Die Another Day (2002) co-starring with Michael Madsen and Javier Bardem. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were scheduled to return to write the screenplay, and Wade described it as "a very atmospheric, Euro thriller, a Bourne-type movie". Producer Barbara Broccoli described it as the beginning of a "Winter Olympics"-style alternative to the conventional Bond films. However, the project was cancelled due to "creative differences" between Eon Productions and MGM, and in order to focus on the reboot of the series with Casino Royale (2006).[17]
Frears’s next film project was The Queen (2006), a film that depicts the death of Princess Diana on 31 August 1997, and the reaction of members of the monarchy and the public. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where Mirren won Best Actress and Peter Morgan won Best Screenplay. Frears was nominated for the Golden Lion. When released within the United States, the film achieved box-office success and awards. At the Academy Awards, Frears received his second Academy Award nomination for best direction. Helen Mirren won numerous awards for playing the title role, including the Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 2013, Frears directed the drama, Philomena (2013), which was based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (2009) by journalist Martin Sixsmith. This explored the story of Philomena Lee's 50-year search for her son, who was taken from her when she was a young unwed mother at a Catholic convent, and adopted by an American family. It also recounted Sixsmith's efforts to help her find the son. The film starred Judi Dench and Steve Coogan.
In 1968, Frears married Mary-Kay Wilmers, with whom he had two sons, Sam and Will. The couple divorced in the early 1970s.[23] Will Frears became a stage and film director.
Early in his career, Frears made a programme featuring the band the Scaffold. He is name-checked ("Mr Frears had sticky-out ears...") in their hit song "Lily the Pink".[24]
As of 2002[update] Frears lived in London with Anne Rothenstein and their two children.[3]
Dame Judith Olivia Dench is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage. Dench has garnered various accolades throughout a career that spanned seven decades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six British Academy Film Awards, and seven Olivier Awards.
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Olivier Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours, and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018. In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Geoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor. Known for often playing eccentric roles on both stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award, making him the only Australian to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, in addition to three BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. Rush is the founding president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and was named the 2012 Australian of the Year.
Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson was an English actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2005, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Stanley Oliver Tucci Jr. is an American actor. Known as a character actor, he has played a wide variety of roles ranging from menacing to sophisticated. Tucci has earned numerous accolades, including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Tony Award.
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she has received two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) in the 2016 New Year Honours, for services to film.
Alex Michael Jennings is an English actor of the stage and screen, who worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. For his work on the London stage, Jennings received three Olivier Awards, winning for Too Clever by Half (1988), Peer Gynt (1996), and My Fair Lady (2003). He is the only performer to have won Olivier awards in the drama, musical, and comedy categories.
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Eyre has received numerous accolades including three Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for six BAFTA Awards and two Tony Awards. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 News Year Honours, and knighted in the 1997 New Year Honours.
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Jonathan Raymond, usually credited Jon Raymond, is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for writing the novels The Half-Life and Rain Dragon, and for writing the short stories and novels adapted for the films Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow, all directed by Kelly Reichardt, with whom he co-wrote the screenplays.
Lisa Cholodenko is an American screenwriter and director. Cholodenko wrote and directed the films High Art (1998), Laurel Canyon (2002), and The Kids Are All Right (2010). She has also directed television, including the miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014) and Unbelievable (2019). She has been nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe and has won an Emmy and a DGA Award.
Peter Julian Robin Morgan, is a British screenwriter and playwright. He has written for theatre, films and television, often writing about historical events or figures such as Queen Elizabeth II, whom he has covered extensively in all major media. He has received a number of accolades including five BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award. In February 2017, Morgan was awarded a British Film Institute Fellowship.
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells is a 2000 British-American television film directed by Gillies MacKinnon. The script by Alan Plater focuses on the efforts of a recently widowed woman to re-unite the members of the World War II-era swing band with which she played saxophone. It features Carry On actress Joan Sims in her final acting performance before her death in 2001, and Romola Garai in her first professional role. The film was a joint project of BBC Films and HBO. It premiered in the US on 26 August, and in the UK on 3 September.
Betsy Beers is an American television and film producer whose credits include ShondaLand's Grey's Anatomy,Scandal,Private Practice, How to Get Away with Murder, The Catch, Station 19, For the People, and Bridgerton.
Bill Kerby was a screenwriter for several Hollywood films and television series who wrote and co-wrote the 1970s films Hooper and The Rose.
The Triple Crown of Acting is a term used in the American entertainment industry to describe actors who have won a competitive Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award in the acting categories, the highest awards recognized in American film, television, and theater, respectively. The term is related to other competitive areas, such as the Triple Crown of horse racing.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
