Years active 1967-1980 Ex-spouse Hazel Collinson Parents Lola Willard | Role Film director Name Peter Collinson | |
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Movies The Italian Job, And Then There Were None, You Can't Win 'Em All, Fright, Open Season Similar People Tony Beckley, Troy Kennedy Martin, Raf Vallone, Margaret Blye, Michael Deeley | ||
Peter Collinson (1 April 1936 – 16 December 1980) was a British film director probably best remembered for directing The Italian Job (1969).
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Early life
Peter Collinson was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire in 1936. His parents, an actress and a musician, separated when he was two years old; he was raised by his grandparents. From ages eight to 14 he attended the Actor's Orphanage in Chertsey, Surrey where he had the chance to write and act in many plays. Noël Coward, who was president of the orphanage at the time, became his godfather and helped him to obtain jobs in the entertainment industry. Collinson later directed Coward in his best-known film, The Italian Job (1969), which was dramatized in the radio play Mr Bridger's Orphan by Marcy Kahan in 2013.
In 1954 he was called up for national service and served two years in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency as a private with the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey).
Career
His early television work included time as a floor manager for the BBC and directing for ATV at Elstree studios where he met the producer Michael Klinger who would offer him the director role on the film, The Penthouse (1967), Collinson's first film. He also worked with Telefís Éireann, the Republic of Ireland's national TV station, and in 1963 he won a Jacob's Award for his production, The Bomb. His film Tomorrow Never Comes (1978) was entered into the 11th Moscow International Film Festival.
Personal life
He emigrated with his wife Hazel and family from the UK to the United States in the mid-1970s. He directed several action films shot in Turkey, Spain, South Africa, Israel, Canada and Australia.
Although Collinson was lauded as a talented director, he was also known as a rather sadistic authoritarian towards his actors. He directed William Holden and Rick Schroder in the movie The Earthling (1980) and was said to have driven the young child actor to tears on numerous occasions. It was during filming that Collinson discovered he was terminally ill, and he died from lung cancer in Los Angeles.