- Born
- Died
- Birth nameDonald Seton Cammell
- British writer/director Donald Cammell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1934, came from a wealthy shipbuilding family. He began his career as a painter, and by the mid-1960s was celebrated among the "Swinging London" crowd. He made his foray into the film industry when he wrote the script for The Touchables (1968), a painfully pretentious--and, seen today, very dated--tale of a rock singer kidnapped by four beautiful female fans. He followed that up with Duffy (1968), about an aging hippie who helps two brothers rob their rich father. His directorial debut came with Performance (1970), about a London gangster who hides out in the house of a strange rock star. The now cult-classic film starred Mick Jagger in one of his earliest dramatic performances. Cammell's Demon Seed (1977) was intended to be a comedy, but the studio for some reason decided to turn it into a bizarre sci-fi thriller, which didn't really satisfy anyone, Cammell least of all.
He didn't make a film for ten years after "Demon Seed", when he directed the atmospheric White of the Eye (1987), about a serial killer. His final film as director, Wild Side (1995), was a thriller that was extensively re-edited by the producers. Cammell was so incensed with the result that he had his name taken off the credits, and it was credited to the non-existent "Frank Brauner".
In April 1996 a despondent Cammell committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com
- SpousesChina Kong(1978 - April 24, 1996) (his death)Maria Antippas(1954 - ?) (divorced, 1 child)
- According to his wife China Kong, after shooting himself "he lived for forty-five minutes, in a state of clarity and ecstasy that was, for me, unimaginable. He spoke nearly continuously, recounting people, places, and plans. Finally, the room seemed to fill with light, and he died".
- In 1988 Marlon Brando, impressed by White of the Eye (1987), employed Cammell to direct a script he had written called "Jericho", an ultra-violent action thriller. Brando would play Billy Harrington, a retired government assassin coerced back into action by evil CIA operatives who introduce his daughter to a Colombian druglord's son, who falls for her. Harrington, named after Brando's psychiatrist who had died recently, embarks on an ultraviolent rescue mission. Andy Garcia, Rubén Blades, Rita Moreno, Quincy Jones and Julia Roberts were going to star in the project. According to Cammell, the body count was huge: "He [Brando] kills everybody - everybody! - in the last reel." Producer Elliott Kastner paid Brando $3 million up front, but after eighteen months of work, while on pre-production in Mexico and with shooting only days away, Brando dropped out, claiming he couldn't get insurance. Kastner went bankrupt, and Cammell went back to his typewriter.
- Son of writer/poet Charles Richard Cammell, heir to one of England's largest shipping fortunes, lost in the stock crash of the 1930s.
- Was offered the chance to direct Bad Influence (1990) and RoboCop 2 (1990).
- Two days before his suicide, Bill Pullman had agreed to star in his new film "'33", which already had studio backing. Set in Istanbul in the '30s, the thriller dealt with a journalist who becomes trapped in the hideout of a heroin kingpin. Albeit the script was originally written in 1987, this was the last project he worked on, together with wife China Kong and Drew Hammond.
- [about White of the Eye (1987)] I painted it as best I can, and if art is to be involved at all, you hope that some kind of energy or sincerity will result in some kind of revelation.
- I am a painter who happens to make films.
- One of the reasons I think Warners hated the film [Performance (1970)] so much is because it forces an audience to consider the construction of their own fragmented selves, the various aspects of sexuality, which is something people never question.
- Performance (1970) is a landmark and a swan song for the era of swinging London.
- [about his unrealized project "Jericho", which was set to star Marlon Brando] The overall image of the film is a man living with his own guilt over all the horror he's perpetrated . . . I felt I knew [Brando] as a performer and I could help orchestrate that performance, to see him bare his soul for once.
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