Elizabeth Mary Driver was born on May 20, 1920 in Leicester. The daughter of a policeman, her family moved to Manchester when she was two, where by her own admission she experienced an unhappy childhood. Driver and her sister Freda were never given any affection by their mother Nellie, and she was pushed into becoming a child star at the tender age of eight after her mother discovered she could sing. "I was the meal ticket for the entire family," she later revealed. At 12, she was touring the UK and attending different schools every week. When Driver reached 14, she secured the leading role in the revue Mr Tower of London. George Formby later cast her in Boots! Boots!, but her scenes as a cabaret singer were left out of the final cut at the insistence of Formby's wife, Beryl, who didn't want to be upstaged. By the age of 21, Driver finally had...
- 10/15/2011
- by By Colin Daniels
- Digital Spy
Producer, director and cinematographer of many well-loved British film classics, including Oliver Twist, Tunes of Glory and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The producer, director, writer and cinematographer Ronald Neame, who has died aged 99, played an important role in British cinema for more than half a century. The critic Matthew Sweet once called him "a living embodiment of cinema, a sort of one-man world heritage site". Neame was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie; he was the cinematographer on In Which We Serve (1942), Noël Coward's moving tribute to the Royal Navy during the second world war; he co-produced and co-wrote David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); and he directed Alec Guinness in two of his best roles, in The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). As if this wasn't enough, Neame also conquered Hollywoo d with one of the first and most successful disaster movies,...
The producer, director, writer and cinematographer Ronald Neame, who has died aged 99, played an important role in British cinema for more than half a century. The critic Matthew Sweet once called him "a living embodiment of cinema, a sort of one-man world heritage site". Neame was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie; he was the cinematographer on In Which We Serve (1942), Noël Coward's moving tribute to the Royal Navy during the second world war; he co-produced and co-wrote David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946); and he directed Alec Guinness in two of his best roles, in The Horse's Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960). As if this wasn't enough, Neame also conquered Hollywoo d with one of the first and most successful disaster movies,...
- 6/20/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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