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Ronald Neame

Ronald Neame CBE, BSC (23 April 1911 – 16 June 2010) was an English film producer, director, cinematographer, and screenwriter. Beginning his career as a cinematographer, for his work on the British war film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1943) he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Special Effects. During a partnership with director David Lean, he produced Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946), and Oliver Twist (1948), receiving two Academy Award nominations for writing.

Ronald Neame
CBE BSC
Neame at the 45th Academy Awards in 1973
Born(1911-04-23)23 April 1911
London, England, U.K.
Died16 June 2010(2010-06-16) (aged 99)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
United States
EducationHurstpierpoint College
Alma materUniversity College School
Occupations
  • Director
  • cinematographer
  • producer
  • screenwriter
Years active1939–1991
Spouse(s)Beryl Yolanda Warburton

Heanly (m. 1933 – div. 1992)

Donna Friedberg
​
(m. 1993)​
ChildrenChristopher Neame
Parent(s)Ivy Close
Elwin Neame

Neame then moved into directing, and some notable films included, The Man Who Never Was (1956), which chronicled Operation Mincemeat, a British WWII deception operation, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), which won Maggie Smith her first Oscar, and the action-adventure disaster film The Poseidon Adventure (1972). He also directed I Could Go On Singing (1963), Judy Garland's last film, and Scrooge (1970), starring Albert Finney.

For his contributions to the film industry, in 1996 Neame was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the highest award the British Film Academy can give a filmmaker.

Early career

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Born in Hendon, London,[1] Neame was the son of photographer Elwin Neame and actress Ivy Close.[2] He studied at University College School and Hurstpierpoint College. His father died in 1923,[3] and Neame took a job with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as an office boy. Later, through his mother's contacts in the British film industry, Neame started at Elstree Studios as a messenger boy.[4]

He was fortunate enough to be hired as an assistant cameraman on Blackmail (1929), the first British talkie, directed by a young Alfred Hitchcock. Neame's own career as a cinematographer began with the musical comedy Happy (1933), and he continued to develop his skills in various "quota quickies" films for several years.

His credits as cinematographer include Major Barbara (1941), In Which We Serve (1942), and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. At the 15th Academy Awards, In Which We Serve won an Academy Honorary Award, and Neame was nominated for an Best Special Effects for his camerawork on One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.[5]

As producer and screenwriter

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Neame and Judy Garland on the set of I Could Go On Singing

Following the success of In Which We Serve, director David Lean,associate producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, and cinematographer Neame formed a new production company together, Cineguild. Though the company only produced nine films between 1944 and 1950, it launched the directing careers of Lean and Neame and the producing career of Havelock-Allan.

The trio's first three films were adaptations of Coward's works: This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, and Brief Encounter. All three films were Directed by Lean, shot by Neame, produced by Havelock-Allan, and co-written from all three. Brief Encounter, which was adapted from Coward's one-act play Still Life, earned all three partners an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination.

Following their success adapting Coward, the trio decided to adapt the works of Charles Dickens. Their screenplay for their first adaptation, Great Expectations, earned the trio another Academy Award nomination. The film also marked an important shift in Neame's career, as it was his first film on which he was not cinematographer. Instead, he served as a producer alongside Havelock-Allan. The next year, he made his directorial debut with Take My Life, again produced by Havelock-Allan.

Cineguild's next film, Oliver Twist, was the beginning of the end for the production company. The film received criticism for antisemitism as a result of Alec Guinness' portrayal of Fagin. It was Havelock-Allan's last film with the company. Neame produced one more film for Cineguild, Lean's The Passionate Friends, before leaving to write, produce, and direct Golden Salamander. Lean's next film, Madeleine, was Cineguild's last, and the only Cineguild production without Neame or Havelock-Allan.

Following Cineguild's dissolution, Neame produced The Magic Box (1951), a screen biography directed by John Boulting about the life of British camera inventor William Friese-Greene, which was the film project for the Festival of Britain.

As director

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Neame made his directorial debut under the Cineguild banner, with Take My Life (1947), which was released by British producer J. Arthur Rank's General Film Distributors in the United Kingdom in 1947 and by Rank's Eagle-Lion Films in the United States in 1949.[6] Neame began a transition to the American film industry at the suggestion of Rank, who asked him to study the Hollywood production system.[7]

He worked again with Alec Guinness (whom he had worked with on Great Expectations and Oliver Twist), this time as director, in three films: The Card (1952), The Horse's Mouth (1958), and Tunes of Glory (1960). Neame described Tunes of Glory as "the film I am proudest of".[4] He received two BAFTA Award nominations for Tunes of Glory. Neame and Guinness worked again on the musical Scrooge (1970) with Guinness playing the ghost of Jacob Marley to Albert Finney's Ebenezer Scrooge.

Neame also directed I Could Go On Singing (1963), Judy Garland's last film, co-starring Dirk Bogarde; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), which won Maggie Smith her first Oscar.

Neame was recruited to direct The Poseidon Adventure (1972) after the contracted director left the production. He later characterised The Poseidon Adventure as "my favourite film" because it earned him enough to retire comfortably.[4] He enjoyed a long friendship with Walter Matthau, whom he directed in two later films, Hopscotch (1980) and First Monday in October (1981).

Neame's final feature-length film, Foreign Body, a comedy starring Victor Banerjee, was filmed in England and released in 1986.

Personal life

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Neame married Beryl Heanly in 1933. They legally separated in 1971 and divorced in 1992. She died in 1999. The couple had one son, Christopher, a writer/producer who died one year after his father's death. Ronald's only grandson, Gareth Neame, is a successful television producer, who represents the fourth generation of Neames in the film industry. Ronnie Neame's second marriage took place in Santa Barbara on 12 September 1993. His wife, Donna Bernice Friedberg, is also in the business – a film researcher and television producer, who worked on his 1979 movie Meteor. He referred to their meeting as a "coup de foudre".[citation needed]

In 1996 Neame was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the film industry. He had homes in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara, California. In 2003 Neame published an autobiography, Straight from the Horse's Mouth. (ISBN 978-0810844902)

Death

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Neame died on 16 June 2010 after suffering complications from a broken leg.[8] The break required two surgical procedures from which Neame never recovered.[9]

In an interview in 2006, he jokingly stated, "When people ask me about the secret to my longevity, I say the honest answer is two large vodkas at lunchtime and three large scotches in the evening. All my doctors have said to me, 'Ronnie, if you would drink less, you'd live a lot longer.' But, they're all dead, and I'm still here at 95."[10]

Filmography

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Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes
1944 This Happy Breed No Yes No Also associate producer (uncredited)
1945 Blithe Spirit No Yes No
1945 Brief Encounter No Yes uncredited Nominated – Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay;
Also production manager
1946 Great Expectations No Yes Yes Nominated – Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
1947 Take My Life Yes No No
1948 Oliver Twist No No Yes
1949 The Passionate Friends No No Yes
1950 Golden Salamander Yes Yes Yes
1951 The Magic Box No No Yes
1952 The Card Yes No No
1953 The Million Pound Note Yes No No
1956 The Man Who Never Was Yes No No
1957 The Seventh Sin Yes No No
Windom's Way Yes No No
1958 The Horse's Mouth Yes No Yes
1960 Tunes of Glory Yes No No
1962 Escape from Zahrain Yes No Yes
1963 I Could Go On Singing Yes No No
1964 The Chalk Garden Yes No No
1965 Mister Moses Yes No No
1966 A Man Could Get Killed Yes No No replaced director Cliff Owen
Gambit Yes No No
1968 Prudence and the Pill Uncredited No No
1969 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Yes No No
1970 Hello-Goodbye uncredited No No Replaced director Jean Negulesco
Scrooge Yes No No
1972 The Poseidon Adventure Yes No No
1974 The Odessa File Yes No No
1979 Meteor Yes No No also British Representative
1980 Hopscotch Yes No No
1981 First Monday in October Yes No No also Speaker Over PA System (uncredited)
1986 Foreign Body Yes No No
1990 The Magic Balloon Yes Yes No Short film

Camera operator

Assistant camera

Cinematographer

References

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  1. ^ "Neame, Ronald". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/103059. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Wheeler Winston Dixon, Rutgers University Press, 11 July 2007, Film Talk: Directors at Work, Retrieved 10 November 2014 (see page 4), ISBN 978-0-8135-4077-1
  3. ^ Neame, Ronald (1911–), BFI Screenonline
  4. ^ a b c Matthew Sweet (19 October 2003). "Ronald Neame (2003 interview at the National Film Theatre)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 March 2008. Retrieved 11 January 2008.
  5. ^ "The 15th Academy Awards (1943) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  6. ^ "Take My Life (1947) Company Credits". IMDb. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  7. ^ Ronald Neame, Filmmaker, Dies at 99
  8. ^ Director Ronald Neame dies aged 99
  9. ^ Ronald Neame Obituary Archived 22 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "Ronald Neame, prolific British filmmaker and cinematographer, dies at 99". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023.

Bibliography

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