David Edward Leslie Hemmings was an English actor and director.
43 Facts About David Hemmings
2.
David Hemmings is best remembered for his roles in British films and television programmes of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly his lead role as a trendy fashion photographer in the hugely successful avant-garde mystery film Blowup, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
3.
Early in his career, Hemmings was a boy soprano appearing in operatic roles.
4.
David Hemmings was born in Guildford, Surrey, to a biscuit salesman father.
5.
Britten's interest in David Hemmings ceased very abruptly from the moment his voice broke, which occurred unexpectedly while singing the aria 'Malo' during a performance of The Turn of the Screw in 1956 in Paris.
6.
David Hemmings made his first film appearance in the drama film The Rainbow Jacket.
7.
David Hemmings began to be known for playing young men, for example in The Painted Smile and Some People.
8.
David Hemmings' luck changed when he was cast in the lead of Blowup.
9.
David Hemmings sought a fresh young face for the lead in the film.
10.
David Hemmings was offered the part of the protagonist, a London fashion photographer who accidentally photographs evidence of a murder, after Sean Connery turned the role down because Antonioni would not show him the full script but only a seven-page treatment stored in a cigarette packet.
11.
David Hemmings had a supporting part in the thriller Eye of the Devil, playing the brother of Sharon Tate.
12.
David Hemmings was then cast as Louis Nolan in the big-budget epic The Charge of the Light Brigade, which, like Camelot, was widely seen but failed to recoup its cost.
13.
Around 1967 David Hemmings was briefly considered for the role of Alex in a film version of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange, which was to be based on a screen treatment by satirist Terry Southern and British photographer Michael Cooper.
14.
David Hemmings costarred with Richard Attenborough in a comedy, Only When I Larf, then was the sole star of an anti-war film, The Long Day's Dying.
15.
David Hemmings played the lead in two period films for MGM: a comedy, The Best House in London, and the historical epic Alfred the Great, in which Hemmings had the title role.
16.
David Hemmings went to Hollywood to play a supporting role in The Love Machine.
17.
David Hemmings went to Spain to appear in Lola and in Britain supported Richard Harris in Juggernaut.
18.
David Hemmings appeared in the Italian giallo film Profondo Rosso directed by Dario Argento.
19.
David Hemmings first turned to directing with Running Scared, an adaptation of an American novel by Gregory Macdonald for which David Hemmings co-wrote the script, resetting the story from Harvard to Cambridge University.
20.
David Hemmings directed the drama film The 14, which won the Silver Bear at the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival.
21.
From this point on, David Hemmings was really a supporting actor.
22.
David Hemmings had support roles in The Squeeze, The Prince and the Pauper, The Heroin Busters, The Disappearance, Squadra antitruffa, Blood Relatives and Power Play.
23.
David Hemmings had a support role in Murder by Decree.
24.
David Hemmings received an offer to play a supporting role in an Australian vampire film, Thirst.
25.
David Hemmings starred in a TV film, Charlie Muffin then returned to Australia to feature in Harlequin.
26.
David Hemmings then received an offer from Ginnane to direct the Australian horror film The Survivor, based on James Herbert's 1976 novel of the same name, starring Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter.
27.
David Hemmings directed Race for the Yankee Zephyr shot in New Zealand.
28.
David Hemmings played supporting roles in Man, Woman and Child and Airwolf.
29.
David Hemmings directed the puzzle-contest video Money Hunt: The Mystery of the Missing Link.
30.
David Hemmings directed the television film The Key to Rebecca, an adaptation of Ken Follett's 1980 novel of the same name.
31.
David Hemmings briefly served as a producer on the NBC crime-drama television series Stingray.
32.
David Hemmings directed the drama film Dark Horse and as an actor returned to the voyeuristic preoccupations of his Blowup character with a plum part as the Big Brother-esque villain in the series-three opener for the television horror anthology series Tales From the Crypt.
33.
David Hemmings appeared as Mr Schermerhorn in the historical film Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese.
34.
David Hemmings appeared in the horror film Blessed with Heather Graham, which was dedicated to his memory after a fatal heart attack while on set.
35.
In 1967, Hemmings recorded a pop single, "Back Street Mirror", and a studio album, David Hemmings Happens, in Los Angeles.
36.
David Hemmings starred as Bertie Wooster in the short-lived Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Jeeves, for which an original cast album was released.
37.
David Hemmings was married four times: to Genista Ouvry, actress Gayle Hunnicutt, Prudence de Casembroot, and Lucy Williams.
38.
David Hemmings met Hunnicutt while he was in America promoting Blowup, by which time his marriage to Ouvry was over.
39.
David Hemmings had six children; he and Ouvry had daughter Deborah, he and Hunnicutt had actor son Nolan, while he and de Casembroot had sons George, Edward and William and daughter Charlotte.
40.
David Hemmings was an active supporter of liberal causes, and spoke at a number of meetings on behalf of the UK's Liberal Party.
41.
David Hemmings died in 2003 at age 62 of a heart attack, in Bucharest, Romania, on the film set of Blessed after he had performed his scenes for the day.
42.
David Hemmings's funeral was held at St Peter's Church, in the hamlet of Blackland near Calne, Wiltshire, where he had lived in his final years.
43.
David Hemmings was buried in the graveyard of the church.