25 Facts About Anthony Minghella

1.

Anthony Minghella, was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter.

2.

Anthony Minghella was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.

3.

Anthony Minghella won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient.

4.

Anthony Minghella's family are well known on the Island, where they ran a cafe in Ryde until the 1980s and have run an eponymous business making and selling Italian-style ice cream since the 1950s.

5.

Anthony Minghella's parents were Edoardo Minghella and Leeds-born Gloria Alberta.

6.

Anthony Minghella was one of five children, his sisters Gioia Minghella-Giddens, Edana Minghella and Loretta Minghella, and a brother Dominic Minghella who would become a screenwriter and producer.

7.

Early interests suggested a possible career as a musician, with Anthony Minghella playing keyboards with local bands Earthlight and Dancer.

8.

Anthony Minghella graduated after three years and stayed on to pursue a PhD.

9.

Anthony Minghella taught at the university for several years, on Samuel Beckett and on the medieval theatre.

10.

Anthony Minghella's debut work was a stage adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's Mobius the Stripper and it was his Whale Music that brought him notice.

11.

Anthony Minghella's double bill of Samuel Beckett's Play and Happy Days was his directorial debut and debut feature film as a director was A Little Like Drowning.

12.

Anthony Minghella wrote several episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse and an episode of long-running ITV drama Boon.

13.

Anthony Minghella's production starred Juliet Stevenson, Bill Nighy and Jenny Howe.

14.

Anthony Minghella turned down an offer to direct another Inspector Morse to do the project, even though he believed that the Morse episode would have been a much higher-profile ll assignment.

15.

Anthony Minghella received an Adapted Screenplay nomination for The Talented Mr Ripley.

16.

Anthony Minghella vocally supported I Know I'm Not Alone, a film of musician Michael Franti's peacemaking excursions into Iraq, Palestine and Israel.

17.

Anthony Minghella directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party in 2005.

18.

Anthony Minghella was honoured with the naming of The Anthony Minghella Theatre at the Quay Arts Centre.

19.

Anthony Minghella made an appearance in the 2007 film Atonement as a television host interviewing the novelist central to the story.

20.

Anthony Minghella shared credit with Michael Tolkin on the screenplay.

21.

Anthony Minghella met his first wife, Yvonne Miller, when they were students.

22.

Anthony Minghella was a fan of Portsmouth FC, and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary, Hallowed Be Thy Game.

23.

Anthony Minghella's home had two double bedrooms dedicated to the display of Portsmouth memorabilia dating back to the club's founding in 1898.

24.

Anthony Minghella died of a haemorrhage on 18 March 2008 in Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, following an operation the previous week to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck.

25.

Anthony Minghella is commemorated with a green plaque on The Avenues, Kingston upon Hull.