Bryan Forbes

Bryan Forbes, CBE (22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter and actor. He was born in Stratford, London and was best known for directing the horror film The Stepford Wives (1975). Later in life he became a novelist.

Career 

Bryan Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke on 22 July 1926 in Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, West Ham, Essex, and grew up at 43 Cranmer Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, Essex.

Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts but did not complete his studies. After military service from 1945 to 1948, he played numerous supporting roles in British films including The Colditz Story (1955), alongside John Mills, as well as appearing on the stage, but was obliged to change his name by British Equity to avoid confusion with the adolescent actor John Clark. He began also to write for the screen, receiving his first full credit for The Cockleshell Heroes (1955). Another noted screenplay of his from this period was for The League of Gentlemen (1959), in which he also acted.

He formed a production company with his frequent collaborator Richard Attenborough in 1959 (Beaver Films), which went on to make The Angry Silence(1960), a screenplay by Forbes in which Attenborough took the lead role, and both shared production responsibilities. His directorial debut was Whistle Down the Wind (1961), again produced by Attenborough. Forbes wrote and directed Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), for which he won a 1965 Edgar Awardfrom the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Foreign Film Screenplay. That same year he wrote the third screen adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novelOf Human Bondage. In 1965 he went to Hollywood to make King Rat. He later followed this with The Wrong Box (1966) and The Whisperers (1967) featuringEdith Evans. A caper film, Deadfall (1968), starred Michael Caine.

In 1969, Forbes was appointed chief of production and managing director of the film studio Associated British (soon to become EMI Films), but the experience was not a success and he resigned from the post in 1971, though he was partially responsible for financing The Railway Children (1970) and The Go-Between (1971). After his experience as an executive, Forbes film resumed successfully as the director of The Raging Moon (1971) and The Stepford Wives (1975).

In 1972, Forbes started work on the documentary, "Elton John and Bernie Taupin Say Goodbye Norma Jean and Other Things," which chronicled the life of a young John and Taupin during their rise to fame in the early years of the duo's now legendary partnership. The project would take Forbes a full year to complete, and in particular provided a behind the scenes look at the writing and recording of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," including interviews with John, Taupin and band members including Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, as well as John's mother, Sheila, DJM label president Dick James and son Stephen, and footage of John's famed 1973 Hollywood Bowl concert. (Some of the footage was licensed for the Eagle Vision Classic Albums series "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" documentary.)

During the filming, Forbes formed a close friendship with John and Taupin, which led him to do other work with them, including photography on the "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album sleeves. The documentary aired in the U.S. on ABC TV shortly after completion, and was later briefly issued on VHS.

He did three more cinema films: The Slipper and the Rose (1976), International Velvet (1978), intended as a continuation of National Velvet (1944), with Nanette Newman in the same role as Elizabeth Taylor in the earlier film, and The Naked Face (1984). These were unsuccessful. For Attenborough, he scriptedChaplin (1992).

Personal life

Born in E15, Forbes was a West Ham United supporter. In 1951 he married troubled Irish actress Constance Smith; he divorced her in 1955, and went on to marry Nanette Newman the same year. Despite popular contention, Roger Moore was not their best man - something his wife confirmed on the Alan Titchmarsh Show in 2011. The couple have two daughters: journalist Sarah Standing (born 21 May 1959), married to actor John Standing, and television presenter Emma Forbes (born 14 May 1965).

Bryan Forbes was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975, and since the early 1970s he had divided his energies between cinema, television, theatre and writing a number of successful novels and two volumes of autobiography. He had been a regular contributor to The Spectator magazine.

In 2004, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the arts and he served as president of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.

Death 

Forbes died at his home in Virginia Water on 8 May 2013 at the age of 86, following a long illness.

See also 

• Albert Herbert artist and former school friend.

References 

^ a b "Director Bryan Forbes made CBE". BBC Online. 12 June 2004. Retrieved 2013-05-08. ^ "Stepford Wives film director Bryan Forbes dies aged 86". BBC Online. 8 May 2013.