Cecil Antonio Richardson was an English theatre and film director, producer and screenwriter, whose career spanned five decades.
20 Facts About Tony Richardson
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Tony Richardson was identified with the "angry young men" group of British directors and playwrights during the 1950s, and was later a key figure in the British New Wave filmmaking movement.
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Tony Richardson's films Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, A Taste of Honey, and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner are considered classics of kitchen sink realism.
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Tony Richardson won the 1964 Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for the film Tom Jones.
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Tony Richardson was a two-time BAFTA Award winner, and was twice nominated for the Palme d'Or.
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Tony Richardson was born in Shipley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928 to Clarence Albert Tony Richardson, a chemist, and his wife, Elsie Evans.
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Tony Richardson lived on the edge of Saltaire as a young child and kept grass snakes with his childhood friend Joan Naylor.
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Tony Richardson was Head Boy at Ashville College, Harrogate and attended Wadham College, University of Oxford.
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Tony Richardson had the unprecedented distinction of being president of both the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Experimental Theatre Club, in addition to being the theatre critic for the university magazine Isis.
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In 1955, in his directing debut, Tony Richardson produced Jean Giraudoux's The Apollo of Bellac for television with Denholm Elliott and Natasha Parry in the main roles.
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Tony Richardson directed John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre, and in the same period he directed Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon.
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In 1959, Tony Richardson co-founded Woodfall Film Productions with John Osborne and producer Harry Saltzman, and, as Woodfall's debut, directed the film version of Look Back in Anger, his first feature film.
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In 1964, Tony Richardson received two Academy Awards for Tom Jones based on the novel by Henry Fielding.
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Tony Richardson's screenwriters were Jean Genet, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, Marguerite Duras, Edward Bond and Edward Albee.
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In 1970, Tony Richardson was set to direct a film about Vaslav Nijinsky with a script by Edward Albee.
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Tony Richardson wrote and directed the comedy-drama The Hotel New Hampshire, based on John Irving's novel of the same name and starring Jodie Foster, Beau Bridges and Rob Lowe.
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In 1966, Tony Richardson is alleged to have financed the escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison of the spy and double agent George Blake.
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Tony Richardson was married to English actress Vanessa Redgrave from 1962 to 1967.
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Tony Richardson was bisexual, but never acknowledged it publicly until 1985, the same year he contracted HIV.
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Tony Richardson died of complications from AIDS on 14 November 1991 at the age of 63.