Anthony Asquith

The Honourable Anthony Asquith (/ˈæskwɪθ/; 9 November 1902 – 20 February 1968) was a leading English film director.

He collaborated successfully with playwright Terence Rattigan on The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version(1951), among other adaptations. His other notable films include Pygmalion (1938), French Without Tears (1940), The Way to the Stars (1945), and a 1952 adaptation of  Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Biography

Born in London, he was the son of H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the first two years of the First World War, and Margot Asquith who was responsible for 'Puffin' as his family nickname. He was educated atWinchester College and Balliol College, Oxford.

The film industry was viewed as disreputable when Asquith was young, and according to the actor Jonathan Cecil, a family friend, Asquith entered his profession in order to escape his background. At the end of the 1920s he began his career with the direction of four silent films the last of which, A Cottage on Dartmoor established his reputation with its meticulous and often emotionally moving frame composition. Pygmalion (1938) was based on theGeorge Bernard Shaw play featuring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. He was a longtime friend and colleague of Terence Rattigan (they collaborated on ten films) and producer Anatole de Grunwald. His later films included Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version (1951), and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1952).

Asquith, an alcoholic, was a charming, gentle man who never married. Asquith died from lymphoma at the age of 65.

Filmography

• Shooting Stars (1927)
• Underground (1928)
• The Runaway Princess (1929)
• A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)
• Tell England (1931)
• The Lucky Number (1932)
• Dance Pretty Lady (1932)
• Unfinished Symphony (1934)
• Moscow Nights (1935)
• Pygmalion (1938)
• French Without Tears (1940)
• Freedom Radio (1941)
• Quiet Wedding (1941)
• Cottage to Let (1941)
• Uncensored (1942)
• We Dive at Dawn (1943)
• The Demi-Paradise (1943)
• Fanny by Gaslight (1944)
• The Way to the Stars (1945)
• While the Sun Shines (1947)
• The Winslow Boy (1948)
• The Woman in Question (1950)
• The Browning Version (1951)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)
• The Final Test (1953)
• The Net (1953)
• The Young Lovers (1954)
• Carrington V.C. (1955)
• On Such a Night (1956)
• Orders to Kill (1958)
• The Doctor's Dilemma (1958)
• Libel (1959)
• The Millionairess (1960)
• Two Living, One Dead (1961)
• Guns of Darkness (1962)
• The V.I.P.s (1963)
• The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)

• The Story of Papworth (1938)
• Channel Incident (1940)
• Rush Hour (1941)
• Two Fathers (1944)