Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough
(; 29 August 1923 – 24 August 2014) was
an English actor, filmmaker, entrepreneur,
and politician. He was the President of the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
(BAFTA). Attenborough joined the Royal Air
Force during World War II and served in the
film unit. He went on several bombing raids
over Europe and filmed action from the rear
gunner's position. He was the older brother
of Sir David Attenborough, a naturalist, documenter,
and broadcaster, and John Attenborough, an
executive at Alfa Romeo. He was married to
actress Sheila Sim from 1945 until his death.
As a film director and producer, Attenborough
won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1983,
receiving awards for Best Picture and Best
Director. The BFI ranked Gandhi the 34th greatest
British film of the 20th century. He also
won four BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe
Awards. As an actor, he is perhaps best known
for his roles in Brighton Rock, The Great
Escape, 10 Rillington Place, The Sand Pebbles,
Miracle on 34th Street (1994) and Jurassic
Park.
== Early life ==
Attenborough was born on 29 August 1923 in
Cambridge, the eldest of three sons of Mary
Attenborough (née Clegg), a founding member
of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick
Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic
administrator who was a fellow at Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, and wrote a standard text
on Anglo-Saxon law. Attenborough was educated
at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester
and studied at RADA.
In September 1939, the Attenboroughs took
in two German Jewish refugee girls, Helga
and Irene Bejach (aged 9 and 11 respectively),
who lived with them in College House and were
adopted by the family after the war when it
was discovered that their parents had been
killed. The sisters moved to the United States
in the 1950s and lived with an uncle, where
they married and took American citizenship;
Irene died in 1992 and Helga in 2005.During
World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal
Air Force. After initial pilot training he
was seconded to the newly formed Royal Air
Force Film Production Unit at Pinewood Studios,
under the command of Flight Lieutenant John
Boulting (whose brother Peter Cotes would
later direct Attenborough in the play The
Mousetrap) where he appeared with Edward G.
Robinson in the propaganda film Journey Together
(1943). He then volunteered to fly with the
Film Unit and after further training, where
he sustained permanent ear damage, qualified
as a sergeant, flying on several missions
over Europe filming from the rear gunner's
position to record the outcome of RAF Bomber
Command sorties.
== Acting career ==
Attenborough's acting career started on stage
and he appeared in shows at Leicester's Little
Theatre, Dover Street, prior to his going
to RADA, where he remained Patron until his
death. Attenborough's first major credited
role was provided in Brian Desmond Hurst's
The Hundred Pound Window (1944) playing Tommy
Draper who helps rescue his accountant father
who has taken a wrong turn in life. Attenborough's
film career had, however, began in 1942 in
an uncredited role as a sailor deserting his
post under fire in the Noël Coward/David
Lean production In Which We Serve (his name
and character were omitted from the original
release-print credits), a role that helped
type-cast him for many years as a spiv, or
coward, in films like London Belongs to Me
(1948), Morning Departure (1950) and his breakthrough
role as Pinkie Brown in John Boulting's film
adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Brighton
Rock (1947), a part that he had previously
played to great acclaim at the Garrick Theatre
in 1942.
In 1949, exhibitors voted him the sixth most
popular British actor at the box office.Early
in his stage career, Attenborough starred
in the West End production of Agatha Christie's
The Mousetrap, which went on to become the
world's longest running stage production.
Both he and his wife were among the original
cast members of the production, which opened
in 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre and as
of 2014 is still running at the St Martins
Theatre. They took a 10 per cent profit-participation
in the production, which was paid for out
of their combined weekly salary ("It proved
to be the wisest business decision I've ever
made... but foolishly I sold some of my share
to open a short-lived Mayfair restaurant called
'The Little Elephant' and later still, disposed
of the remainder in order to keep Gandhi afloat.")
Attenborough worked prolifically in British
films for the next 30 years, including in
the 1950s, appearing in several successful
comedies for John and Roy Boulting, such as
Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right
Jack (1959).In 1963, he appeared alongside
Steve McQueen and James Garner in The Great
Escape as RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett
("Big X"), the head of the escape committee,
based on the real-life exploits of Roger Bushell.
It was his first appearance in a major Hollywood
film blockbuster and his most successful film
thus far. During the 1960s, he expanded his
range of character roles in films such as
Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns
at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA
Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of
the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM). In 1965
he played Lew Moran opposite James Stewart
in The Flight of the Phoenix and in 1967 and
1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards
in the category of Best Supporting Actor,
the first time for The Sand Pebbles, again
co-starring Steve McQueen, and the second
time for Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison.
He won the 1967 Best Supporting Actor Award
for The Sand Pebbles. His portrayal of the
serial killer John Christie in 10 Rillington
Place (1971) garnered excellent reviews. In
1977, he played the ruthless General Outram,
again to great acclaim, in the Indian director
Satyajit Ray's period piece The Chess Players.He
took no acting roles following his appearance
in Otto Preminger's version of The Human Factor
(1979) until his appearance as John Hammond
in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993)
and the film's sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic
Park (1997). He starred in the remake of Miracle
on 34th Street (1994) as Kris Kringle. Later
he made occasional appearances in supporting
roles, including as Sir William Cecil in the
historical drama Elizabeth (1998), Jacob in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
and as "The Narrator" in the film adaptation
of Spike Milligan's comedy book Puckoon (2002).He
made his only appearance in a film adaptation
of Shakespeare when he played the English
ambassador who announces that Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are dead at the end of Kenneth
Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
== Producer and director ==
In the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production
company, Beaver Films, with Bryan Forbes and
began to build a profile as a producer on
projects including The League of Gentlemen
(1959), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle
Down the Wind (1961), appearing in the cast
of the first two films. His performance in
The Angry Silence earned him his first nomination
for a BAFTA. Seance On A Wet Afternoon won
him his first BAFTA award.
His feature film directorial debut was the
all-star screen version of the hit musical
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), after which
his acting appearances became sporadic as
he concentrated more on directing and producing.
He later directed two epic period films: Young
Winston (1972), based on the early life of
Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977),
an all-star account of Operation Market Garden
in World War II.He won the 1982 Academy Award
for Best Director for his historical epic
Gandhi, and as the film's producer, the Academy
Award for Best Picture; the same film garnered
two Golden Globes, this time for Best Director
and Best Foreign Film, in 1983. He had been
attempting to get the project made for 18
years. He directed the screen version of the
musical A Chorus Line (1985) and the anti-apartheid
drama Cry Freedom (1987). He was nominated
for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director
for both films.His later films as director
and producer include Chaplin (1992) starring
Robert Downey Jr., as Charlie Chaplin and
Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship
between C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham (the star
of the latter was Anthony Hopkins, who had
appeared in four previous films for Attenborough:
Young Winston, A Bridge Too Far, Magic and
Chaplin).
Between 2006 and 2007, he spent time in Belfast,
working on his last film as director and producer,
Closing the Ring, a love story set in Belfast
during World War II, and starring Shirley
MacLaine, Christopher Plummer and Pete Postlethwaite.Despite
maintaining an acting career alongside his
directorial roles, Attenborough never directed
himself (save for an uncredited cameo appearance
in A Bridge Too Far).
== Later projects ==
After 33 years of dedicated service as President
of the Muscular Dystrophy campaign, Attenborough
became the charity's Honorary Life President
in 2004. In 2012, the charity, which leads
the fight against muscle-wasting conditions
in the UK, established the Richard Attenborough
Fellowship Fund to honour his lifelong commitment
to the charity, and to ensure the future of
clinical research and training at leading
UK neuromuscular centres.Attenborough was
also the patron of the United World Colleges
movement, whereby he contributed to the colleges
that are part of the organisation. He was
a frequent visitor to the Waterford Kamhlaba
United World College of Southern Africa (UWCSA).
With his wife, they founded the Richard and
Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Centre. He
founded the Jane Holland Creative Centre for
Learning at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland
in memory of his daughter who died in the
tsunami on 26 December 2004.
He was a longtime advocate of education that
does not judge upon colour, race, creed or
religion. His attachment to Waterford was
his passion for non-racial education, which
were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba
was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations
for directing the film Cry Freedom, based
on the life of Steve Biko.He founded The Richard
Attenborough Arts Centre on the Leicester
University campus in 1997, specifically designed
to provide access for the disabled, in particular
as practitioners.He was elected to the post
of Chancellor of the University of Sussex
on 20 March 1998, replacing The Duke of Richmond
and Gordon. He stood down as Chancellor of
the university following graduation in July
2008.A lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football
Club, Attenborough served as a director of
the club from 1969–1982 and between 1993
and 2008 held the honorary position of Life
Vice President. On 30 November 2008 he was
honoured with the title of Life President
at the club's stadium, Stamford Bridge. He
was also head of the consortium Dragon International
Film Studios, which was constructing a film
and television studio complex in Llanilid,
Wales, nicknamed "Valleywood". In March 2008,
the project was placed into administration
with debts of £15 million and was considered
for sale of the assets in 2011.A mooted long-term
lease to Fox 21 fell through in 2015, though
the facilities continue to be used for filmmaking.He
had a lifelong ambition to make a film about
his hero the political theorist and revolutionary
Thomas Paine, whom he called "one of the finest
men that ever lived". He said in an interview
in 2006 that "I could understand him. He wrote
in simple English. I found all his aspirations
– the rights of women, the health service,
universal education... Everything you can
think of that we want is in Rights of Man
or The Age of Reason or Common Sense." He
could not secure the funding to do so. The
website "A Gift for Dickie" was launched by
two filmmakers from Luton in June 2008 with
the aim of raising £40m in 400 days to help
him make the film, but the target was not
met and the money that had been raised was
refunded.
== Personal life ==
Attenborough's father was the principal of
University College, Leicester, now the city's
university. This resulted in a long association
with the university, with Attenborough becoming
a patron. The university's Embrace Arts at
the RA centre, which opened in 1997 is named
in his honour. He had two younger brothers:
naturalist and broadcaster David; and John
(died 2012), who had made a career in the
motor trade.
Attenborough married actress Sheila Sim in
Kensington on 22 January 1945. From 1949 until
October 2012 they lived in Old Friars on Richmond
Green in London.
In the 1940s, he was asked to 'improve his
physical condition' for his role as Pinkie
in Brighton Rock. He was asked to train with
Chelsea Football Club for a fortnight, subsequently
becoming good friends with those at the club.
He went on to become a director during the
1970s, helping to prevent the club losing
its home ground by holding onto his club shares
and donating them – worth over £950,000
– to Chelsea. In 2008, Attenborough was
appointed Life President of Chelsea Football
Club.On 26 December 2004, the couple's elder
daughter, Jane Holland (30 September 1955
– 26 December 2004), along with her mother-in-law,
Audrey Holland, 81, and Attenborough's 15-year-old
granddaughter, Lucy, were killed when a tsunami
caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake struck
Khao Lak, Thailand, where they were on holiday.A
service was held on 8 March 2005 and Attenborough
read a lesson at the national memorial service
on 11 May 2005. His grandson Samuel Holland,
who survived the tsunami uninjured, and granddaughter
Alice Holland, who suffered severe leg injuries,
also read in the service. A commemorative
plaque was placed in the floor of St Mary
Magdalen's parish church in Richmond. Attenborough
later described the Boxing Day of 2004 as
"the worst day of my life". Attenborough had
two other children, Michael (born 13 February
1950) and Charlotte (born 29 June 1959). Michael
is a theatre director formerly the Deputy
Artistic Director of the RSC and Artistic
Director of the Almeida Theatre in London
and has been married to actress Karen Lewis
since 1984; they have two sons, Tom and Will.
Charlotte is an actress, and has two children.He
publicly endorsed the Labour Party in the
2005 General Election, despite his opposition
to the Iraq War.Attenborough collected Picasso
ceramics from the 1950s. More than 100 items
went on display at the New Walk Museum and
Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007, in an exhibition
dedicated to family members lost in the tsunami.In
2008 he published an informal autobiography
entitled Entirely Up to You, Darling in association
with his colleague Diana Hawkins.
=== Illness and death ===
In August 2008, Attenborough entered hospital
with heart problems and was fitted with a
pacemaker. In December 2008, he suffered a
fall at his home after a stroke and was admitted
to St George's Hospital, Tooting, southwest
London. In November 2009, Attenborough, in
what he called a "house clearance" sale, sold
part of his extensive art collection, which
included works by L. S. Lowry, Christopher
R. W. Nevinson and Graham Sutherland, generating
£4.6 million at Sotheby's.In January 2011,
he sold his Rhubodach estate on the Scottish
Isle of Bute for £1.48 million. In May 2011,
David Attenborough said his brother had been
confined to a wheelchair since his stroke
in 2008, but was still capable of holding
a conversation. He added that "he won't be
making any more films."In June 2012, shortly
before her 90th birthday, Sheila Sim entered
the professional actors' retirement home Denville
Hall, for which she and Attenborough had helped
raise funds. In October 2012, it was announced
that Attenborough was putting the family home,
Old Friars, with its attached offices, Beaver
Lodge, which come complete with a sound-proofed
cinema in the garden, on the market for £11.5
million. His brother David stated: "He and
his wife both loved the house, but they now
need full-time care". It simply isn't practical
to keep the house on any more." In December
2012, in light of his deteriorating health,
Attenborough moved into the same nursing home
in London to be with his wife, as confirmed
by their son Michael.Attenborough died on
24 August 2014, five days before his 91st
birthday. He requested that his ashes be interred
in a vault at St Mary Magdalene church in
Richmond beside those of his daughter Jane
Holland and his granddaughter, Lucy, both
of whom had died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
He was survived by his wife of 69 years, their
two children, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren,
and his younger brother David. His widow,
actress Sheila Sim, died on 19 January 2016,
aged 93.
== Honours and styles ==
=== 
British state honours ===
In the 1967 Birthday Honours, he was appointed
a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE). He was made a Knight Bachelor in the
1976 New Year Honours, having the honour conferred
on 10 February 1976 and on 30 July 1993 he
was created a life peer as Baron Attenborough,
of Richmond upon Thames in the London Borough
of Richmond upon Thames.Although the appointment
by John Major was 'non-political' (it was
granted for services to the cinema) and he
could have been a crossbencher, Attenborough
chose to take the Labour whip and so sat on
the Labour benches. In 1992 he had been offered
a peerage by Neil Kinnock, then leader of
the Labour Party, but refused it as he felt
unable to commit himself to the time necessary
"to do what was required of him in the Upper
Chamber, as he always put film-making first".
=== Styles of address ===
1923–1967: Mr Richard Attenborough
1967–1976: Mr Richard Attenborough
1976–1993: Sir Richard Attenborough
1993–2014: The Rt Hon. The Lord Attenborough
=== 
Other honours ===
Attenborough was the subject of This Is Your
Life in December 1962 when he was surprised
by Eamonn Andrews at the Savoy Hotel, during
a dinner held to commemorate the 10th anniversary
of the Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap,
in which he had been an original cast member.In
1983, Attenborough was awarded the Padma Bhushan,
India's third highest civilian award, and
the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolence Peace
Prize by the Martin Luther King Jr. Center
for Nonviolent Social Change. He was also
awarded France’s most distinguished award,
the Legion d’Honeur and the Oliver Tambo
Award by the South African government ‘for
his contribution to the struggle against apartheid’.
In 1993, Attenborough was appointed a Fellow
of King's College London.On 13 July 2006,
Attenborough, along with his brother David,
were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary
Fellows of the University of Leicester "in
recognition of a record of continuing distinguished
service to the university".On 20 November
2008, Attenborough was awarded an Honorary
Doctorate of Drama from the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow.Attenborough
was an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University
for his contributions to film making.Pinewood
Studios paid tribute to his body of work by
naming a purpose-built film and television
stage after him. The Richard Attenborough
Stage has an area of 30,000 sq ft. In his
absence because of illness, Lord Puttnam and
Pinewood Chairman Lord Grade officially unveiled
the stage on 23 April 2012.The Arts for India
charity committee honoured Attenborough posthumously
on 19 October 2016 at an event hosted at the
home of BAFTA.
== Corporate appointments ==
Actors Charitable Trust. Chairman 1956–88,
President 1988–2014
Equity. Council Member 1949–73
Royal Theatrical Fund Board of Directors.
Vice President 1985–2014
Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Vice President
1962–71, President 1971–2004, Life President
2004–2014
Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund. Council
Member 1962–2003, Vice Patron 2003–2014
King George V Fund for Actors. Committee Member
1962–73, Trustee 1973–2014
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Member
of Council 1963–73, Chairman 1973–2003,
President 2003–2014
Combined Theatrical Charities Appeals Council.
Chairman 1964–88, President 1988–2014
Royal Society of Arts. Life Fellow 1965
Chelsea Football Club. Vice President 1966,
Director 1969–82, Life Vice President 1993–2008,
Life President 2008–2014
Cinematograph Films Council Member 1967–73
Gardner Centre for the Arts, University of
Sussex. Patron 1969–90, President 1990–2014
National Film and Television School. Governor
1970–81, President 1977–2014
University of Sussex. Pro Chancellor 1970–98,
Chancellor 1998–2008
BAFTA. Vice President 1971–94, Chairman
of David Lean BAFTA Foundation Trustees 1972–2002,
President 2002–2014
Capital Radio. Chairman 1972–92, Life President
1992–2014
The Little Theatre, Leicester. Patron 1973–92,
Honorary Life President 1992–2014
The Young Vic Theatre Company. Director 1974–84
"Help a London Child". Founder & Life Patron
1998–2014
Tate Gallery. Trustee 1976–82 & 1994–96
Waterford Kamhlaba School, Swaziland. Chairman
UK Trustees 1976–2004, Member Governing
Council 1987–, President 2004–2014
Duke of York's Theatre. Chairman 1979–92
Channel Four Television Corporation. Deputy
Chairman 1980–86, Chairman 1986–92
Board of Governors of the British Film Institute.
Chairman 1981–92
Goldcrest Films & Television. Chairman 1982–87
Kingsley Hall Community Centre. (Mahatma Gandhi
lodged there in 1931) Patron 1982–2014
Committee of Enquiry into the Arts and Disabled
People: Reporting on access and inclusion.
Chairman 1983–85
The Gandhi Foundation. President 1983–2014
Brighton Festival. President 1984–85
British Film Year. President 1984–86
British Screen Advisory Council. Chairman
1987–96, Honorary President 1996–2014
UNICEF. Goodwill Ambassador 1987–2014
European Script Fund. Chairman 1988–96,
Honorary President 1996–2014
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, London. Patron
(with Lady Attenborough) 1988–2014
Arts For Health. President 1989–2014
European Film Academy. Co-founder (with Ingmar
Bergman, Federico Fellini and Claude Chabrol)
1989
Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability
and the Arts, University of Leicester. Patron
1990–2014
Foundation for Sport and the Arts. Trustee
1991–2003, President 2003–2014
Chicken Shed Theatre Company. Honorary Patron
1992–2014
One World Action. Patron 1992–2014
Satyajit Ray Foundation. Patron 1995–2014
Oxford University, Cameron Mackintosh Visiting
Professor of Contemporary Theatre. 1996
Sussex Centre for German-Jewish Studies. Patron
1996–2014
United World Colleges. Member of the International
Board 1996–2000, International Patron 2000–2014
Amnesty International. Patron 1997–2014
Mousetrap Theatre Projects. Trustee 1997–2014
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.
Trustee 1998
UK Film Council. Government Advisor 1999–2014
Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust. Trustee
2001–2014
Themba HIV/AIDS Project in South Africa. Patron
2002–2014
Unicorn Theatre. Patron 2002–2014
Mandela Statue Fund. Chairman 2003–2007
St Edward's Oxford North Wall Arts Centre.
Patron and Steering Committee Member 2005–2014
CLIC Sargent. Ambassador 2006–2014
Greater London Fund for the Blind. Vice President
2006–2014
The Richard Attenborough Regional Film Critics
Award. Patron 2007–2014Attenborough also
headed a committee awarding the Attenborough
Prize, a £2,000 annual arts prize celebrating
creativity by emerging artists.
== Filmography ==
== Portrayals ==
In early 1973, he was portrayed as "Dickie
Attenborough" in the British Showbiz Awards
sketch late in the third series of Monty Python's
Flying Circus. Attenborough is portrayed by
Eric Idle as effusive and simpering. A portrayal
similar to that seen in Monty Python can be
seen in the early series of Spitting Image,
when Attenborough's caricature would regularly
appear to thank others for an imagery award.
In 2012 Attenborough was portrayed by Simon
Callow in the BBC Four biopic The Best Possible
Taste, about Kenny Everett.
== Styles ==
Richard Attenborough, Esq. (1923–1967)
Richard Attenborough, CBE (1967–1976)
Sir Richard Attenborough, CBE (1976–1993)
The Rt Hon. The Lord Attenborough, CBE (1993–2014)
== See also ==
List of oldest Best Director Academy Award
winners
