Lindsay Anderson

He was also a prominent stage director, both at the Royal Court Theatre and at the West End.

• Name — Lindsay Anderson • Birth Name — Lindsay Gordon Anderson • Born — 17 April 1923 • Birthplace — Bangalore, British India (now Bengaluru, Karnataka, India) • Father — Alexander Vass Anderson • Education — Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire Wadham College, Oxford • Died — 30 August 1994 • Place of death — Angoulême, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France • Occupation — Film director, theatre director, film producer, screenwriter, film critic, actor, artistic director • Years Active — 1948–1993

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was born in Bangalore, South India, where his father was stationed with the Royal Engineers, on 17 April 1923. His father, Captain (later Major General) Alexander Vass Anderson, was a British Army officer who had come from Scotland. His mother Estelle Bell Gasson was born in Queenstown, South Africa, the daughter of a wool merchant. Lindsay was the second son. His parents separated in 1926, and Estelle returned to England with the two boys. In 1932 the couple tried to reconcile in Bangalore, and when Estelle returned to England she was pregnant with their third son, who was named Alexander Vass Anderson after his father. The Andersons divorced. Estelle married again in 1936, to Major Cuthbert Sleigh. Lindsay's father remarried while in India. Gavin Lambert writes, in Mainly About Lindsay Anderson: A Memoir (Faber and Faber, 2000, p. 18), that the father Alexander Vass Anderson "cut (his first family) out of his life", making no reference to them in his Who's Who entry. However, Lindsay often saw his father and looked after his house and dogs when he was away. Both Lindsay and his elder brother Murray Anderson (1919–2016) were educated at Saint Ronan's School in Worthing, West Sussex, and at Cheltenham College. It was at Cheltenham that Lindsay met his lifelong friend Gavin Lambert, who became a screenwriter and novelist, and later the director's biographer. The UK had been at war for 3 years when Anderson won a scholarship in 1942 for classical studies at Wadham College at the University of Oxford. In the next year he entered the Second World War, serving in the Army from 1943 until 1946, first with the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps. In the final year of the war he was a cryptographer for the Intelligence Corps, based at the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi. In August 1945, Anderson assisted in nailing the Red flag to the roof of the Junior Officers' mess in Annan Parbat, after the victory of the Labour Party in the general election was confirmed. Their colonel did not approve, he recalled a decade later, but took no disciplinary action against the junior officers. Anderson returned to Oxford in 1946 but switched from classical studies to English; he graduated in 1948.

Anderson was also a significant theatre director. He was long associated with London's Royal Court Theatre, where he was Co-Artistic Director from 1969, and Associate Artistic Director from 1972 until 1975. He directed premiere productions of plays by David Storey, among others. In New York City, he staged Home (also in London, both with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson), The Kingfisher (also in Britain, with Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert on Broadway and Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson in the UK), and The Holly and the Ivy.

Between 1955 and 1956, Anderson directed five episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood. This was his first experience of directing professional actors onscreen. Also in the 1950s he directed TV commercials for products including Kellogg's corn flakes and Lux Soap. Later he recorded stage successes of his for TV, including Home with Gielgud and Richardson for the Play for Today series (1972). In 1978, Anderson directed The Old Crowd for LWT, from a script by Alan Bennett. Hyped before broadcast in the British press as a rare excursion by Anderson into TV work, it was then harshly reviewed. The experience soured Anderson towards British television, though in 1980 he directed Look Back in Anger for Showtime, and in 1989 Glory! Glory!, a satirical miniseries for HBO about televangelism. He also presented a documentary about Free Cinema for Thames Television in 1986, and narrated several documentaries about cinema, including Ingmar Bergman: The Director (1988) for Thames and D W Griffith: Father of Film (1993) for Channel 4. In 1992, as a close friend of the late actresses Jill Bennett and Rachel Roberts, Anderson arranged a boat trip to scatter the women's ashes in the Thames River. Professional colleagues and friends were also on the boat and musician Alan Price sang the song "Is That All There Is?". Anderson included this event in his last work, Is That All There Is?, an autobiographical film for BBC-TV.

Anderson wrote in his diary in 1942, "It seems I am homosexual. It really is rather awful and I suppose I shall never get rid of it." Gavin Lambert, in his memoir Mainly About Lindsay Anderson, wrote about Anderson's homosexuality and repression of his orientation, drawing on his private diaries: this was seen as a betrayal by some of his other friends. This repression caused him intense grief by his later years, with writer David Storey stating, "Lindsay had a great battle with his homosexuality throughout his life. He just couldn't come to terms with it. This conflict was central to his life, and out of it came a terrible cynicism and an attitude that was more and more sour and embittered." Anderson's friend and collaborator Alan Bennett wrote in a review of Lambert's book: In November 2006, Malcolm McDowell talked to The Independent about Anderson's sexuality: I know that he was in love with Richard Harris. I am sure that it was the same with me and Albert and the rest. It wasn't a physical thing. But I suppose he always fell in love with his leading men. He would always pick someone who was unattainable because he was heterosexual.

Anderson died from a heart attack in Angoulême, France, on 30 August 1994, at the age of 71.

• Year — Title — Notes • 1956–57 — The Adventures of Robin Hood — 5 episodes • 1972 — Play for Today — Episode: "Home" • 1979 — The Old Crowd — Television film • 1980 — Look Back in Anger — Television film; co-directed with David Hugh Jones • 1989 — Glory! Glory! — Television film

• Year — Title — Notes • 1948 — Meet the Pioneers • 1949 — Idlers That Work • 1952 — Trunk Conveyor • Three Installations • 1953 — O Dreamland • 1954 — Thursday's Children • 1955 — The Children Upstairs • Henry • Green and Pleasant Land • Foot and Mouth • Energy First • A Hundred Thousand Children • £20 a Ton • 1957 — Wakefield Express • Every Day Except Christmas • 1959 — March to Aldermaston • 1967 — The Singing Lesson • 1986 — Free Cinema • If You Were There • 1992 — John Ford — Writer only

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1963 — Der Schwur des Soldaten Pooley — Narrator (voice) — Television film, English-language version • 1968 — Play of the Month — Holz — Episode: "The Parachute" • Omnibus — Narrator (voice) — Episode: "The Charm of Dynamite: Abel Gance" • 1987 — Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow — 3 episodes • 1989, 1993 — American Masters — 2 episodes • 1991 — Prisoner of Honor — War Minister — Television film

All Royal Court, London, unless otherwise indicated: • The Waiting of Lester Abbs (Kathleen Sully, 1957) • The Long and the Short and the Tall (Willis Hall, 1959) • Progress to the Park (Alun Owen, 1959) • The Trial of Cob and Leach/Jazzetry (Christopher Logue, 1959) • Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (John Arden, 1959) • The Lily White Boys (Harry Cookson and Christopher Logue, 1960) • Trials by Logue: Antigone/Cob and Leach (Christopher Logue, 1960) • Diary of a Madman (Gogol adaptation, 1963) • Box and Cox (John Maddison Morton, 1961) • The Fire Raisers (Max Frisch, 1961) • Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare, 1964) • Andorra (Max Frisch, National Theatre at the Old Vic, 1964) • The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov, Chichester Festival Theatre, 1966) • Inadmissible Evidence (John Osborne, Teatr Współczesny, Warsaw, 1966) • The Contractor (David Storey, 1969) • Home (David Storey, also Morosco Theatre NY, 1970) • The Changing Room (David Storey, 1971) • The Farm (David Storey, 1973) • Life Class (David Storey, 1974) • In Celebration (David Storey 1974) • What the Butler Saw (Joe Orton, 1975) • The Seagull (Anton Chekhov, Lyric Theatre, 1975); in repertory with • The Bed Before Yesterday (Ben Travers, Lyric Theatre, 1975) • The Kingfisher (William Douglas Home, Lyric Theatre 1977, Biltmore NY, 1978) • Alice's Boys (Felicity Brown and Jonathan Hayes, Savoy Theatre, 1978) • Early Days (David Storey, National Cottesloe Theatre, 1980) • Hamlet (Theatre Royal, Stratford East, 1981) • The Holly and the Ivy (Wynyard Browne, Roundabout New York, 1982) • The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1983) • The Playboy of the Western World (John Millington Synge, 1984) • In Celebration revival (David Storey, Manhattan Theatre Club, NY, 1984) • Holiday (Philip Barry, Old Vic, 1987) • The March on Russia (David Storey, National Lyttelton Theatre, 1989) • The Fishing Trip (Frank Grimes, Warehouse Theatre, 1991) • Stages (David Storey, National Cottesloe Theatre, 1992)

Lindsay Anderson is recorded as film director, actor, screenwriter, film producer and journalist.

Anderson was passionate about film, and with his friend Gavin Lambert, and Peter Ericsson and Karel Reisz, co-founded Sequence magazine (1947–52), which became influential. Anderson became a prominent film critic. He also later wrote for the British Film Institute's journal Sight and Sound, and for the New Statesman, a left-wing political weekly. In a 1956 polemical article, "Stand Up, Stand Up" published in Sight and Sound, Anderson attacked contemporary critical practices, in particular the pursuit of objectivity. Taking as an example some comments made by Alistair Cooke in 1935, in which Cooke had claimed to be without politics as a critic, Anderson responded: Following a series of screenings which he and the National Film Theatre programmer Karel Reisz organized for the venue of independently produced short films by himself and others, he developed a philosophy of cinema that was expressed in what became known, by the late 1950s, as the Free Cinema movement. He and other leaders in the field believed that the British cinema must break away from its class-bound attitudes and that non-metropolitan Britain ought to be shown on the nation's screens. Anderson had already begun to make films himself, starting in 1948 with Meet the Pioneers, a documentary about a conveyor-belt factory. Anderson was invited to join the British Film Institute's Board of Governors in 1969 with the aim of bolstering support for independent British directors, but left the role after a year. Anderson developed an acquaintance with one of his filmmaking heroes, John Ford. He wrote what has come to be regarded as one of the standard books on that director, About John Ford (1981). Based on half-a-dozen meetings over more than two decades, and Anderson's lifetime study of the man's work, the book has been described as "One of the best books published by a film-maker on a film-maker".

• Year — Title — Director — Writer — Producer — Notes • 1963 — This Sporting Life • 1967 — The White Bus — Short • 1968 — if.... • 1973 — O Lucky Man! • 1975 — In Celebration • 1982 — Britannia Hospital • 1987 — The Whales of August • 1992 — Is That All There Is? — Mockumentary

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1949 — Idlers That Work — Narrator (voice) — Short • 1952 — Trunk Conveyor • Three Installations • 1955 — The Pleasure Garden — Michael-Angelico • 1968 — Inadmissible Evidence — Barrister • 1973 — O Lucky Man! — Film Director — Uncredited • 1981 — Chariots of Fire — Master of Caius • 1992 — Blame It on the Bellboy — Mr. Marshall (voice) • Is That All There Is? — Himself