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29 Facts About Sidney Gilliat

1.

Sidney Gilliat was an English film director, producer and writer.

2.

Sidney Gilliat and Launder made their directorial debut co-directing the home front drama Millions Like Us.

3.

Sidney Gilliat and Launder made over 40 films together, founding their own production company Individual Pictures.

4.

Sidney Gilliat wrote the libretto for Malcolm Williamson's opera Our Man in Havana, based on the novel by Graham Greene.

5.

Sidney Gilliat was born in the district of Edgeley in Stockport, Cheshire, and was the son of George Sidney Gilliat, the editor of the London Evening Standard from 1928 to 1933.

6.

Sidney Gilliat was brought up in New Malden and educated at London University, studying English and History.

7.

Sidney Gilliat worked for a period as a journalist at the Evening Standard, later saying he was fired after refusing to interview a grieving widow who was too upset to be spoken to.

8.

The film critic of the Evening Standard, Walter Mycroft, went to work at Elstree Studios as a scenario editor, and hired Sidney Gilliat to write intertitles for silent films.

9.

Sidney Gilliat was fired after he was overheard criticising a producer's work.

10.

Sidney Gilliat wrote The Happy Ending and A Gentleman of Paris.

11.

Sidney Gilliat was credited as writer on Friday the Thirteenth ; Orders Is Orders ; Falling for You with Jack Hulbert; Jack Ahoy with Hulbert; Chu Chin Chow ; Bulldog Jack with Hulbert; My Heart is Calling ; and Strangers on Honeymoon.

12.

Sidney Gilliat worked on a Will Hay film, Where There's a Will, and a horror film The Man Who Changed His Mind.

13.

Sidney Gilliat wrote another for Hay, Ask a Policeman, and was one of several writers on Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn.

14.

For Reed Sidney Gilliat wrote on his own a thriller Girl in the News.

15.

Sidney Gilliat began writing war time shorts such as Mr Proudfoot Shows a Light.

16.

Sidney Gilliat and Launder worked on They Came by Night, and Reed's The Young Mr Pitt.

17.

Sidney Gilliat and Launder made an unlikely pair, both physically and temperamentally Launder spare, dark and easily excited, Sidney Gilliat stockier and with the sort of down-to-earth, practical nature which provided a solid basis for their working partnership.

18.

Sidney Gilliat, in fact, always deprecated his own comic talents, claiming that it was Launder who wrote all the jokes, though this was a huge overstatement.

19.

Sidney Gilliat helped write Two Thousand Women which Launder directed.

20.

Sidney Gilliat directed The Rake's Progress with Rex Harrison; Green for Danger ; and London Belongs to Me.

21.

Sidney Gilliat directed the thriller State Secret while Launder did Lady Godiva Rides Again and Folly to Be Wise.

22.

Sidney Gilliat did The Constant Husband with Rex Harrison followed by Launder's Geordie.

23.

Sidney Gilliat directed Fortune Is a Woman, a thriller with Jack Hawkins while Launder did Blue Murder at St Trinian's and The Bridal Path.

24.

Sidney Gilliat directed Left Right and Centre, a political satire after which Launder did The Pure Hell of St Trinian's.

25.

Sidney Gilliat had a big hit with Only Two Can Play, which he directed.

26.

Sidney Gilliat produced Joey Boy, and then both men directed The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery.

27.

Sidney Gilliat had two children: Joanna and Caroline Gilliat, and three grandchildren.

28.

Sidney Gilliat died in at his home in Wiltshire, England on 31 May 1994 aged 86.

29.

Sidney Gilliat's brother was the producer Leslie Gilliat who worked with him.