38 Facts About Andy Harries

Andrew Harries was born on 7 April 1954 and is chief executive and co-founder of Left Bank Pictures, a UK based production company formed in 2007.

Andy Harries has been described by Broadcast Magazine as "one of the UK's most outstanding drama producers".

Andy Harries is married to filmmaker and writer Rebecca Frayn, daughter of the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.

Andy Harries was born in Inverness, Scotland, on 7 April 1954 and grew up in Peterborough, England, receiving primary education at West Town Primary School until 1961, and secondary education at the public Oakham School.

Andy Harries grew up aspiring to be a war correspondent in Vietnam, or an investigative journalist; his idols were Harold Evans, Jon Swain and John Pilger.

Andy Harries left college at the age of 17 with poor A Level results and became a trainee reporter on the Peterborough Evening Telegraph newspaper.

Andy Harries applied to various northern universities to break away from his southern middle-class lifestyle, and was accepted at Hull University.

Andy Harries stayed at Hull until he was 21, though continued to work at the Evening Telegraph during holidays.

Andy Harries did not understand the appeal of television production, and as a result he was turned away at two interviews before being hired in 1976.

Andy Harries read the news for three months until one night when he condensed a six-minute bulletin into three minutes.

Andy Harries attributed this to stage fright, which caused him to speak too fast.

The rest of the production crew were not ready to move on to the next news items, leaving Andy Harries standing in silence for several minutes.

Andy Harries recalled in a 2007 interview that Steve Morrison, the producer of the bulletin, called him into his office and berated him, telling him he did not deserve to be on television and that he would no longer be reading the news.

Greengrass's investigation was a success, though Andy Harries admits his own programme "didn't make a blind bit of difference".

In 1981, Andy Harries left Granada and moved into freelance producing and directing.

Andy Harries formed a production company called Sleeping Partners with Greengrass in the latter part of the decade, which produced Ross's The Incredibly Strange Film Show and comedian Lenny Henry's Lenny Live and Unleashed film.

The latter was directed by Andy Harries and was edited together from a number of performances by Henry at the Hackney Empire in 1989.

At the 1991 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Andy Harries personally bought the television rights to An Evening with Gary Lineker, a comedy play written by Arthur Smith and Chris England based around a group of England fans at the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Andy Harries tried selling Smith and England's screenplay to the BBC, Channel 4, LWT, Yorkshire Television and Central Independent Television to no avail.

The BBC offered to produce it as a studio play but Andy Harries wanted a full-length film to distinguish it from the original play, which was by then playing at London's West End.

Andy Harries was reluctant to offer the script to Granada because of his previous experience with the company.

Andy Harries was disappointed that pressure from Granada's management had forced him to replace so many of the original stage cast; England was replaced by Paul Merton, leaving Caroline Quentin as the only original actor.

Andy Harries scrapped these episodes and had them refilmed without a laugh track.

The Royle Family returned for a one-off special in 2006, an achievement Andy Harries described as giving him no greater pleasure.

The programme was Aherne's first critical failure, which Andy Harries blamed on the BBC One schedulers.

Andy Harries was interested in producing more comedy dramas, based on the success of American programmes like Thirtysomething, and assigned Granada producer Christine Langan to work with Bullen.

Andy Harries executive produced two more series of Bullen's; Life Begins and All About George.

Andy Harries blamed ITV Network Centre and publicly criticised the network, courting the ire of its director of channels David Liddiment.

In September 2000, Andy Harries's portfolio was significantly expanded when he was appointed Granada's controller of drama, following the resignations of Sue Hogg and Simon Lewis.

That same year Andy Harries brought back the drama serial Prime Suspect, which had not been produced since the star Helen Mirren quit in 1995.

In 2004, Andy Harries was ranked number eleven on a list of the most powerful figures in British TV drama, compiled by industry experts for the Radio Times.

Peter Morgan was due to return as the writer, Stephen Frears was signed on as director and Andy Harries suggested to Mirren that she play the Queen.

At Left Bank, Andy Harries proposed to produce two features films per year, as well as several television series.

Andy Harries executive produced the third part of Peter Morgan's "Blair trilogy", The Special Relationship, for HBO Films and BBC Films.

In Broadcasts Top 100 for 2010, Andy Harries was ranked at number two in the executive producers category.

Andy Harries received an Academy Award nomination as producer of The Queen which saw a run of six Academy Award nominations with Helen Mirren memorably winning Best Actress.

Andy Harries was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to film and television.

Andy Harries has been married to writer and director Rebecca Frayn since July 1992.