TONY RICHARDSON

TONY RICHARDSON THEATER AND FILM DIRECTOR

Credited with bringing new vigor to the English theater, Richardson was best known in the United States for his films, such as Tom Jones (1963), which won three Academy Awards.

Born in Shipley, England, June 5, 1928, Cecil Antonio Richardson began directing plays while at Oxford University, from which he graduated in 1952. Directing John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) he brought new energy to London theater by showing working-class life on stage. In 1957 he directed it in New York, where it received a Drama Critics Circle Award. After reviving the career of Laurence Olivier with the film The Entertainer (1960), he launched the actor Tom Courtney in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) and Albert Finney in Tom Jones (1963). The many awards for Tom Jones included an Oscar for Richardson as best director. His Hollywood movies include The Loved One (1965) with Liberace (see card 29), Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Hamlet (1970), and The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). His last film, Blue Sky, with Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones, was not yet released when he died from AIDS November 15, 1991.

According to film historians, Richardson never received the acclaim he deserved, perhaps because he was a private person who avoided the spotlight, or perhaps because he was not good at playing film studio politics. He was married to the actress Vanessa Redgrave from 1962 to 1967, and they had two daughters, Natasha and Joely Richardson. He had a third daughter Katherine with Grizelda Grimond. Neither at the time of his death nor since has anyone offered an explanation of how Richardson contracted AIDS. Next Card 44: LARRY RILEY: Actor

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