Robert James Leslie Halliwell was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4.
17 Facts About Leslie Halliwell
1.
2.
Leslie Halliwell is best known for his reference guides, Filmgoer's Companion, a single volume film-related encyclopaedia featuring biographies and technical terms, and Halliwell's Film Guide, which is dedicated to individual films.
3.
Leslie Halliwell grew up during the Golden Age of Hollywood, a period when film production was at its peak, with new releases debuting in cinemas with great regularity.
4.
Leslie Halliwell went almost nightly to the cinema with his mother, Lily, which provided an escape from the at times tough reality of their mill town.
5.
Leslie Halliwell was then employed as a film publicist for the company.
6.
Leslie Halliwell married Ruth Porter in 1959 and they had one son.
7.
Leslie Halliwell was given responsibility for buying TV shows and in 1968 became the chief film buyer for the ITV network, a role he maintained throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s.
8.
In keeping with the channel's intention to appeal to specialist audiences, Leslie Halliwell focused primarily on films from the 1930s and '40s.
9.
Isaacs later wrote that Leslie Halliwell had made an "unsurpassed contribution" to the channel's success.
10.
Leslie Halliwell used a four-star rating system similar in appearance to the system used by Steven Scheuer and Leonard Maltin.
11.
However, in Leslie Halliwell's system even a one-star rating was a definite recommendation.
12.
Leslie Halliwell acknowledged his predecessors in the introduction to the first edition,.
13.
Leslie Halliwell came under fire from journalists and critics for the brevity of his assessments, and his dismissive stance on more modern films.
14.
Observer film critic Philip French wrote that Leslie Halliwell "isn't a scholar, critic or cineaste, but rather a movie buff, a man who knows the credits of everything but the value of very little".
15.
Leslie Halliwell retired from the television industry in 1986 but continued to edit his film guides.
16.
Leslie Halliwell wrote a regular TV article for the Daily Mail beginning in 1987, and published a number of historical and critical works about the cinema.
17.
Leslie Halliwell died of esophageal cancer at the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher, Surrey, a month before his 60th birthday.