Tough Talk interview with Michael Gill 06 Jan 2016 -How was Nepal in B.S 2023?
George Michael Gill (10 December 1923 – 20 October 2005) was an English television producer and television director responsible for creating 'ground-breaking' documentaries for the BBC.
Gill was born in Winchester, Hampshire but was brought up in Canterbury. He contracted tuberculosis as a child which disrupted his education severely including four years in a spinal chair. He served in the RAF in Intelligence during the war. One of his most memorable debriefings was interrogating a German who had survived a 20,000 ft fall over the Netherlands without his parachute opening.
After the war he studied Philosophy and Psychology at Edinburgh University. After a period as a sub-editor and arts reviewer on The Scotsman, he joined the BBC. He worked first on radio but soon moved to television.
He is chiefly remembered for Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark (1969) (director and co-producer) and Alistair Cooke's America (1973) (director and producer). Although the idea for Civilisation and its presenter, Kenneth Clark, were given to Gill, 'America' and its presenter were entirely Gill's idea. In total Gill made more than 150 films for television and the cinema and won more than 40 major international awards.
In 1951 he married, the actress Yvonne Gilan, best remembered for her portrayal of Mrs. Peignoir in Fawlty Towers. The couple went on to have two sons, Adrian and Nicholas. The marriage was dissolved and he remarried in 1978 to Georgina Denison, with whom he had a daughter, Chloe. He died in London from Alzheimer's disease.
He was the father of writer, journalist and newspaper columnist A.A. Gill.
Filmography
Producer
1998
The Face of Russia (TV Mini Series) (producer)
1996
The South Bank Show (TV Series documentary) (producer - 1 episode)
- Vermeer: Light, Love and Silence (1996) - (producer)
1995
Highlanders (TV Series documentary) (producer)
1994
The Buried Mirror (TV Mini Series) (producer - 5 episodes)
- Unfinished Business (1994) - (producer)
- The Price of Freedom (1994) - (producer)
- Conflict of the Gods (1994) - (producer)
- The Age of Gold (1994) - (producer)
- The Virgin and the Bull (1994) - (producer)
1989
Vintage: A History of Wine (TV Mini Series) (producer)
1987
Spacecraft (TV Mini Series documentary) (co-producer)
1984
How to Enjoy Wine (Documentary) (producer)
1984
Pride of Place (TV Series documentary) (executive producer)
1984
American Playhouse (TV Series) (executive producer - 1 episode)
- The Ghost Writer (1984) - (executive producer)
1982
Janet Baker: Full Circle (TV Movie documentary) (executive producer)
1980
The Commanding Sea (TV Series documentary) (producer)
1977
Royal Heritage (TV Series documentary) (producer)
1972
America (TV Series documentary) (producer - 13 episodes)
- The More Abundant Life (1973) - (producer)
- The Arsenal (1973) - (producer)
- The Promise Fulfilled and the Promise Broken (1973) - (producer)
- The Huddled Masses (1973) - (producer)
- Money on the Land (1973) - (producer)
- Domesticating a Wilderness (1972) - (producer)
- A Firebell in the Night (1972) - (producer)
- Gone West (1972) - (producer)
- Inventing a Nation (1972) - (producer)
- Making a Revolution (1972) - (producer)
- Home From Home (1972) - (producer)
- The New Found Land (1972) - (producer)
- The First Impact (1972) - (producer)
1969
Civilisation (TV Mini Series documentary) (producer - 14 episodes)
- The Frozen World (1970) - (producer)
- Heroic Materialism (1969) - (producer)
- The Fallacies of Hope (1969) - (producer)
- The Worship of Nature (1969) - (producer)
- The Smile of Reason (1969) - (producer)
- The Pursuit of Happiness (1969) - (producer)
- The Light of Experience (1969) - (producer)
- Grandeur and Obedience (1969) - (producer)
- Protest and Communication (1969) - (producer)
- The Hero as Artist (1969) - (producer)
- Man: The Measure of All Things (1969) - (producer)
- Romance and Reality (1969) - (producer)
- The Great Thaw (1969) - (producer)
- The Skin of Our Teeth (1969) - (producer)
1966
Giacometti (TV Short documentary) (producer)
1966
Francis Bacon Fragments of a Portrait (TV Movie documentary) (producer)
1965
Monitor (TV Series documentary) (producer - 1 episode)
- 10 Thousand Days, 93 Thousand Hours, 33 Years of Effort (1965) - (producer)
1963
Merry-Go-Round (TV Series documentary) (producer - 10 episodes)
- Discovering Castles: Part 1 (1965) - (producer)
- Hans in Luck/Wheelbarrow Farm (1963) - (producer)
- The Minotaur/Wheelbarrow Farm (1963) - (producer)
- Wheelbarrow Farm/The History of Flight: Part 3 (1963) - (producer)
- Wheelbarrow Farm/The History of Flight: Part 2 (1963) - (producer)
- Wheelbarrow Farm/The History of Flight: Part 1 (1963) - (producer)