Banbury, (Frederick Harold) Frith (1912–2008), actor, theatre director, and producer, was born on 4 May 1912 at 8 The Terrace, The Hoe, Plymouth, the elder child of Captain Frederick Arthur Frith Banbury (1874–1951), naval officer, and his wife, Winifred, née Fink (1876/7–1960). His sister ...
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Sheila Van Damm (1922–1987) by Lewis Morley, 1962 © Lewis Morley, courtesy of The Akehurst Bureau; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
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Damm, Sheila Van (1922–1987), rally driver and theatre director, was born on 17 January 1922 in Gloucester Terrace, Paddington, London, the youngest of three daughters (there were no sons) of Vivian Van Damm (d. 1960) and his wife, Natalie Lyons. Although her father had sponsored motorcycle speedway events in the 1920s, before inheriting the ...
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Goldfaden, Avrom (1840–1908), playwright and theatre director, was born in Old Constantine, Ukraine, on 12 July 1840, one of four sons born to Khayim Lipe Goldenfodem, a watchmaker, and his wife, Khane Rivke. Like his brothers, he was apprenticed to his father, but in an effort to take advantage of a new tsarist decree offering the sons of Jewish families an alternative to conscription, he was sent to the rabbinical academy in ...
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Don Chapman
Hauser, Frank Ivor (1922–2007), theatre director, was born on 1 August 1922 at 37 Park Place, Cardiff, the fourth of five children of Abraham Hauser (1888/9–1966) and his wife, Sarah, née Cohn (1889–1970). His father was a Polish Jewish émigré who became a naturalized British subject, and served with the ...
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Michael Billington
Pinter, Harold (1930–2008), actor, playwright, and director, was born on 10 October 1930 at Tudor House, Newington Green, London, the only child of Hyman (Jack) Pinter (1902–1997), ladies' tailor, and his wife, Frances, née Moskowitz (1904–1992). At the time of his birth his parents lived at ...
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Harold Pinter (1930–2008) by Justin Mortimer, 1992 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) by unknown photographer, 1923? [ and Lady Diana Cooper (1892–1986) [rehearsing The Miracle by Karl Vollmoeller] Getty Images
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Reinhardt, Max [real name Max Goldmann] (1873–1943), theatre director and manager, was born Max Goldmann on 9 September 1873 in Baden, near Vienna, of Jewish parents, the eldest of six children of Wilhelm Goldmann (1846–1906), shopkeeper, and his wife, Rosa Weingraf (1851–1924)...
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Karel Reisz (1926–2002) by Callum Bibby, 1985 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Saville, Philip (1927–2016), television, film, and theatre director, was born on 28 October 1927 at the St Marylebone Infirmary, in Northumberland Street, Marylebone, London, the son of Louis Saffer, later Saville, a salesman for a clothing company, and his wife, Sadie Kathleen, née...
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John Richard Schlesinger (1926–2003) by Michael Birt, 1983 © Michael Birt; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
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Brian McFarlane
Schlesinger, John Richard (1926–2003), film and stage director, was born on 16 February 1926 at 53 Hollycroft Avenue, Hampstead, London, the son of Bernard Edward Schlesinger (1896–1984), paediatrician, and his wife, Winifred Henrietta, née Regensburg (1897–1986), who had studied music at Trinity College of Music...
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Robert Murphy
Viertel, Berthold (1885–1953), film and theatre director, was born in Vienna on 28 June 1885, the son of Jewish parents who owned a furniture-making business. He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and became a follower of the radical journalist, playwright, and poet ...
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Samuel Wanamaker (1919–1993) by Robin Mayes, 1993 © News International Newspapers Ltd
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Wanamaker [formerly Watenmaker], Samuel [Sam] (1919–1993), actor and director, was born Samuel Watenmaker on 14 June 1919 in Chicago, USA, the second son of Morris Watenmaker, later Wanamaker, and his wife, Molly, née Bobele. His parents were first generation Russian-Jewish immigrants. It is quite possible that his stage début as a teenager in a plywood and paper replica of the ...
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Maker: Helmuth Lohmann
Peter Max Zadek (1926–2009) by Helmuth Lohmann, 1984 © Helmuth Lohmann / AP / PA Photos
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Christopher Webber
Zadek, Peter Max (1926–2009), theatre director, was born in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Germany, on 19 May 1926, the only child of Paul Zadek (1879/80–1969), haberdashery salesman, and his wife, Suzanne (Suzi), née Behr (c.1889–1959), whose family were prominent Jewish bankers. Both had been married before: his father, who spent six months of every year travelling in ...
