Biography

Lindsay Anderson

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Lindsay was born in Bangalore, India, but educated in England at Cheltenham College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he was a classical scholar. He then spent three years wartime service in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. His career in the theatre started at the Royal Court in the late 1950's, where he was responsible for the premiere productions of The Long and the Short and the Tall, Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Billy Liar and The Bed Before Yesterday. His collaboration with David Storey began with the film This Sporting Life, followed by the plays In Celebration, Home, The Changing Room, Early Days and his last, in 1992, Stages. He also contributed to the Times, Observer and New Statesman newspapers. Many of these pieces were collected and put into book form in 'Never Apologise'.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

Was offered the role of the Emperor in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), but had to decline because of post-production for his film Britannia Hospital (1982), which also featured Mark Hamill. Anderson expressed disappointment about this, telling a friend he probably would've enjoyed playing a "Prince of Evil" character.
Directed 3 actors to Oscar nominations: Richard Harris (Best Actor, This Sporting Life (1963)), Rachel Roberts (Best Actress, This Sporting Life (1963)), and Ann Sothern (Best Supporting Actress, The Whales of August (1987)).
He was a close friend of the actresses Rachel Roberts and Jill Bennett, both of whom committed suicide. He paid tribute to both in his documentary film, Is That All There Is? (1992).
In the 1992 Sight & Sound poll, Lindsay Anderson listed the following as his top 10 favorite films: L'Age d'Or (1930) (Luis Buñuel), Douce (1943) (Claude Autant-Lara), Duck Soup (1933) (Leo McCarey), Earth (1930) (aka Earth; Aleksandr Dovzhenko), Listen to Britain (1942) (Humphrey Jennings), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) (Vincente Minnelli), The Singing Lesson (1967) (Lindsay Anderson), They Were Expendable (1945) (John Ford), Tokyo Story (1953) (aka Tokyo Story; Yasujirō Ozu), Zero de Conduite (1933) (aka Zero for Conduct; Jean Vigo).
Anderson's abrasive personality was legend. According to Malcolm McDowell, he wanted his epitaph to read, "Surrounded by fucking idiots".

I suppose I'm the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all about he had fled. The trouble is I don't know whether the boy was a hero or a bloody idiot.
[speaking in 1986] The modern perception of British cinema has nothing to do with British films--merely with the business of getting more money through the box office.
[speaking at age 61] In the morning I feel about 50; then, depending on how the day goes, I might get down to about 22. When I'm directing on stage, I'm 43 and 32 when making a film because I feel less in control. Acting? Oh, then I'm 24. And when I'm on my own, I feel about 17 and think the world is all before me.
To make a film is to create a world.
[on Samuel Goldwyn] There are lucky ones whose great hearts, shallow and commonplace as bedpans, beat in instinctive tune with the great heart of the public, who laugh as it likes to laugh, weep the sweet and easy tears as it likes to weep . . . Goldwyn is blessed with that divine confidence in the rightness (moral, aesthetic, commercial) of his own intuition--and that, I suppose, is the chief reason for his success.

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