29 Facts About Richard Lester

Richard Lester Liebman was born on January 19,1932 and is an American retired film director based in the United Kingdom.

Richard Lester is an Honorary Associate of London Film School.

Richard Lester Liebman was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia.

Richard Lester was the music director on Action in the Afternoon, an American western television series that aired live on CBS from February 2,1953, to January 29,1954.

In May 1955, after a period spent busking around continental Europe, Richard Lester moved to London and began work as a director in television, working for the low-budget producers the Danziger Brothers on episodes of Mark Saber, a half-hour detective series.

Richard Lester worked as a writer on Curtains for Harry and for a few weeks, The Barris Beat.

Richard Lester wrote and directed episodes of the TV series After Hours.

Richard Lester did another short titled The Sound of Jazz.

Richard Lester's second was The Mouse on the Moon, produced by Walter Shenson for United Artists starring Margaret Rutherford, a sequel to The Mouse That Roared.

Richard Lester returned to TV, directing episodes of Room at the Bottom.

Richard Lester was sent an award from MTV as "Father of the Music Video".

Richard Lester received a Hollywood offer to direct the film adaptation of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Richard Lester then made the darkly surreal anti-war movie How I Won the War co-starring Crawford and Lennon, which Lester referred to as an "anti-anti-war movie".

Richard Lester explained that anti-war movies still took the concept of war seriously, contrasting "bad" war crimes with wars fought for "good" causes like the liberation from Nazism or, at that time, Communism, whereas with screenwriter Charles Wood, Lester set out to show war as fundamentally opposed to humanity.

Richard Lester made Petulia with Julie Christie and George C Scott, and a score by John Barry.

Richard Lester returned to his anti-war theme with the post-apocalyptic black comedy The Bed Sitting Room, based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.

How I Won the War and Bed Sitting Room performed poorly at the box office; Richard Lester found himself unable to raise funds for a series of projects, including an adaptation of the Flashman novels.

Richard Lester's career revived when he was hired by Alexander and Ilya Salkind to do a version of The Three Musketeers, based on a script by George MacDonald Fraser.

Richard Lester was called in at the last minute as a replacement director on Juggernaut, a thriller set on a cruise liner.

The success of the Musketeers films enabled Richard Lester to raise the finances for Royal Flash, based on the second of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser.

Richard Lester followed Royal Flash with Robin and Marian which was adapted from a script by James Goldman and starred Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn.

Richard Lester then made The Ritz which was based on a play by Terrence McNally.

Richard Lester directed Butch and Sundance: The Early Days and Cuba with Connery; neither film was successful commercially.

Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luthor, refused to return for the reshoots, so Richard Lester instead used a stunt double and an impersonator to loop Luthor's lines onto footage of Hackman shot by Donner.

In November 2006, Donner's footage was re-edited into Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, consisting primarily of his footage with Lester's footage used only for scenes not shot during Donner's principal photography of the movie.

Richard Lester directed Superman III, but this third installment was not as well received as its predecessors.

Richard Lester directed the comedy Finders Keepers, starring Michael O'Keefe, Louis Gossett Jr.

Richard Lester finished the film, then returned only to direct Paul McCartney's concert film Get Back.

Richard Lester wrote Getting Away with It, published in 1999 about Lester's career; the book consists of interviews with Lester.