English filmmaker Alan Parker died yesterday after a lengthy illness, the BBC reports. He was 76 years old. As well as the director of films like Bugsy Malone, Fame, and Evita, Parker was a cartoonist, whose work was compiled into several books, including 2005’s “Will Write and Direct for Food.”
Alan William Parker was born on February 14, 1944, to a working class family in Islington, London. He attended Dame Alice Owen’s School in Hertfordshire, and left school at 18 to go into advertising. By 1968, he had transitioned from copywriting to directing television commercials, and in 1975, he made his feature length debut with The Evacuees, a TV movie about two Jewish boys who are evacuated during the war. The film won a BAFTA for Best Play, and an International Emmy, the first of many awards for Parker.
He followed up The Evacuees with his theatrical debut Bugsy Malone. He also directed Pink Floyd – The Wall and The Commitments, and non-musical projects like Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, and Angela’s Ashes; and the horror film Angel Heart. In 1998, he became chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute (BFI), and in 1999 he was appointed the first chairman of the newly formed UK Film Council. His final film was the 2003 Kevin Spacey thriller, The Life of David Gale.
In his introduction to “Will Write and Direct for Food,” Parker said he began cartooning while working in advertising. “Over the years, moonlighting from my day job as a filmmaker, I’ve always scribbled cartoons — mostly about the insanity of making movies while trying to get a film made — a time when dealing with studio executives, agents, lawyers, actors and the rest, encourages one to consider negative thoughts and very often grievous bodily harm…” His often coarse cartoons became surprisingly popular, even among his targets. “It’s always been a curiosity to see my vomited scribbles framed on some studio executive’s wall — the very executives they were aimed at,” he said.
Parker was knighted for his services to film in 1995. He was nominated for numerous BAFTA Film Awards, and won Best Screenplay for Bugsy Malone, Best Direction for Midnight Express, and Best Film with The Commitments, and also received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2013. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Director, for his work on Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning. Though a box office flop, his 1984 film Birdy was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the Top Ten Films of the year, and won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
According to a family spokeswoman, Parker spent his retirement enjoying silk screen printing, and painting. He is survived by his second wife, producer Lisa Moran, five children (including screenwriter Nathan Parker), and seven grandchildren.
