David Lean

He was born in 1908 in Croydon, Surrey, and started at the bottom, as a clapperboard[?] assistant. By 1930 he was working as an editor on newsreels, including Gaumont Pictures and Movietone[?]. His career in mainstream films began with Escape Me Never (1936), and his first work as a director was in partnership with Noel Coward on In Which We Serve (1942). He came into his own with Brief Encounter (1945), and directed several films based on classic novels, such as Great Expectations (1946).

With the advent of colour, Lean became well-known as the director of blockbusters such as Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Academy Award. Dr. Zhivago[?] (1965) was another major hit, but after the moderately successful Ryan's Daughter in 1970, he did not direct another film until A Passage to India (1984), which would be his last. He was in the midst of planning an epic production of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo[?] when he died in 1991.