Jonathan Hugh Pemberton Stedall was an English television producer and documentary filmmaker known for his collaborations with John Betjeman, Malcolm Muggeridge and Alan Bennett.
25 Facts About Jonathan Stedall
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Jonathan Stedall was educated at the independent Cothill House and Harrow School.
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On leaving Harrow, Jonathan Stedall briefly worked in the family business, before studying at the London School of Film Technique.
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Jonathan Stedall worked as an assistant stage manager, then as a stage manager, with the repertory company at the Grand Theatre in Croydon.
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Jonathan Stedall then became an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios.
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For two years Jonathan Stedall was a floor manager at the Independent Television companies Television Wales and the West and Associated Television.
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On rejoining TWW, the franchise holder for Independent Television in South Wales and the West of England, Jonathan Stedall directed factual programmes.
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Jonathan Stedall directed Betjeman's West Country films broadcast by TWW between 1962 and 1963.
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Jonathan Stedall would remain friends with Betjeman until the end of his life in 1984.
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Jonathan Stedall worked with the writer Gwyn Thomas on portraits of Rhondda, Neath and other South Wales areas from 1962 to 1963.
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In 1963, Jonathan Stedall moved to the BBC as a producer and director.
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Jonathan Stedall started with two months on the current affairs programme Tonight.
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In 1968, Jonathan Stedall produced In Need of Special Care, a two-part documentary series about the Camphill Movement's work helping people with learning disabilities, which won the 1969 Society of Film and Television Arts Robert Flaherty Award and was nominated for the Society's United Nations Award.
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Jonathan Stedall switched to films about historical figures for Gandhi's India, The Story of Carl Gustav Jung and Tolstoy: From Riches to Rags.
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In 1973, Jonathan Stedall produced In Defence of the Stork, which examined the connections between embryology and the story of creation in the Book of Genesis, with Camphill's Thomas Weihs.
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That same year, Jonathan Stedall directed Thank God It's Sunday, about how Londoners spend their Sundays.
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Jonathan Stedall then worked on One Pair of Eyes, Summoned by Bells and The Long Search.
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In 1982, Jonathan Stedall made Muggeridge: Ancient and Modern, in which Malcolm Muggeridge looked back on his life.
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In 1983, Jonathan Stedall presented and produced Time with Betjeman, a 7-part series celebrating Betjeman's life and work.
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Jonathan Stedall directed four films inspired by William Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man speech.
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Jonathan Stedall left the BBC in 1990 and became an independent documentary filmmaker in 1993, producing 21 films over 12 years.
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Jonathan Stedall produced The Abbey, a day in the life of Westminster Abbey, then Mark Tully's Faces of India for Channel 4, marking the 50th anniversary of the country's independence.
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Jonathan Stedall directed the 100 Greatest Britons episode on Elizabeth I, written and presented by Michael Portillo.
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In 1981, Jonathan Stedall married Jackie Barton, a statistician and teacher who later became a mathematics historian.
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Jonathan Stedall died of cancer on 21 October 2022, at the age of 84.