Trivia

This hugely influential and controversial British film critic was born in London to Swiss parents on September 1,1932. He died (also in London) on May 19, 2002, just short of his 70th birthday.

He was a prolific author over many years, his books including studies of such directors as Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Bunuel, Georges Franju and King Vidor.

Occasionally published film criticism under the pseudonym "O.O. Green".

He published his first article in a film magazine at the age of nineteen; his last book was published posthumously in the year of his death, 51 years later.

He was co-editor (with Ian Johnson) of a British film magazine called "Motion", which ran for only a few issues in 1963 before ceasing publication and is now considered a collector's item.

His Swiss parents came to live in Britain in 1924, and his father was initially employed as a window-dresser. Losing his job in the economic depression, he subsequently became a haberdasher. The family lived in the working-class London suburb of Walthamstow.