Sandy Whitelaw
Alexander "Sandy" Whitelaw (28 April 1930 – 20 February 2015) was a British actor, producer, director and subtitler.
Sandy Whitelaw
- Full name
- Alexander Whitelaw.
- Born
- 1930. · London.
- Died
- 2015. · Paris.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom.
- Occupation
- actor, film director, film producer, translator and skier.
- Languages
- English.
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Sandy Whitelaw. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q21997913 · wikipedia · Sandy Whitelaw
In this article
Early life
Early life
Whitelaw was born in London and educated in Switzerland, the UK and the United States. He represented Britain as a skier in the 1956 Olympics.
Filmmaking career
Filmmaking career
Whitelaw's film career began when he worked as an assistant to the producer David O. Selznick on the 1957 film A Farewell to Arms. He also worked for the production company Hecht-Lancaster. He went on to work for United Artists in a number of capacities, including as head of production for UA Europe. At this time he was based in London and worked on films including Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972), Federico Fellini’s Roma (1972) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Decameron (1971). He directed two films: Lifespan (1974), which starred Klaus Kinski, and Vicious Circles (1997), which starred Ben Gazzara. He acted in a number of films including The American Friend (1977), Broken English (1981) and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005). Whitelaw began to work as a subtitler in the 1970s in Paris. It was the producer Pierre Cottrell who suggested that he subtitle Jean Eustache's film Mes petites amoureuses. He continued to work as a subtitler for four decades.
Filmography
Filmography
• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1975 — Vincent mit l'âne dans un pré (et s'en vint dans l'autre) — Jérôme • 1977 — The American Friend — Arzt in Paris • 1977 — Les apprentis sorcier • 1978 — Robert et Robert — Le guide anglais • 1978 — La Tortue sur le dos — Prokosch • 1979 — Lady Oscar — Un invité au bal noir • 1981 — Beau-père — Le père de la jeune fille (anniversaire) — Uncredited • 1981 — Broken English — Arms Dealer • 1982 — All Fired Up • 1982 — Enigma • 1984 — Notorious Nobodies • 2005 — The Beat That My Heart Skipped — Mr. Fox • 2012 — Au galop — Homme veillée — (final film role)
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
London.
Birth place
Paris.
Death place
Films subtitled
Whitelaw provided English subtitles for more than 1,000 films over a period of several decades. He once called it "like getting paid to do crosswords". One of the more challenging jobs he took on was the subtitling, with Stephen O'Shea, of Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film La Haine. Their subtitles for this film received considerable critical attention. Notable titles subtitled by Whitelaw include: • Mes petites amoureuses (Eustache, 1974) • Pauline at the Beach (Rohmer, 1983) • Danton (Wajda, 1983) • Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985) • La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) • Heading South (Cantet, 2005) • Quai d'Orsay (Tavernier, 2013)
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Sandy Whitelaw”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q21997913: Sandy Whitelaw
General reference · Wikidata
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Sandy Whitelaw, revision 1307864542 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Former United Artists Exec Sandy Whitelaw Dies at 84".
- 2."Sandy Whitelaw obituary".
- 3.Sandy Whitelaw Olympic Results.
- 4."Sandy Whitelaw imdb page".
- 5."Rod Glacial, Profession Sous-Titreur. Trois Couleurs 121, May 2014".
- 6."Anthony Paletta, Lost in Translation, Found in Subtitles, New York Times, 3 October 2012".
- 7."Pierre-Alexis Mével. The Translation of Identity: Subtitling the Vernacular of the French cité". In MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 2 (2007), pp.49-56 .
- 8."A Raw French Film Survives Translation".
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Died at
1- ParisPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 19 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
38,713 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Sandy JohnsonPerson
- Sandy LamPerson
- Sandy MöllingPerson
- Sandy SmolanPerson
- Sanford MeisnerPerson
- Sang-il LeePerson
- SangeetaPerson
- Sangeeta BijlaniPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Sandy Whitelaw?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.