Anthony Minghella, CBE (6 January 1954 – 18 March 2008) was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.

He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient (1996), which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the BAFTA Award for Best Film and Golden Globe Award for Best Director.

Early life[link]

Minghella was born in Ryde, Isle of Wight, the son of Gloria (née Arcari) and Edward Minghella, ice cream factory owners.^[1] His father was an Italian immigrant and his mother was born in Leeds to an Italian family;^[2] her ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in the Lazio region of central Italy.

Minghella attended Sandown Grammar School and St. John's, Portsmouth. He graduated from the University of Hull, where he completed undergraduate and postgraduate courses, but eventually abandoned his doctoral thesis.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

His first piece of produced work was a 1975 stage adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's Mobius the Stripper and it was his 1985 piece Whale Music that kickstarted his career.^[3] He made his directorial debut with a double bill of Samuel Beckett's Play and Happy Days. His first feature film as a director was A Little Like Drowning in 1978.

During the 1980s, he worked in television, starting as a runner on Magpie before moving into script editing the children's drama series Grange Hill for the BBC and later writing The Storyteller series for Jim Henson. He also wrote several episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse and an episode of long-running ITV drama Boon. His 1986 play Made in Bangkok found mainstream success in the West End.

Minghella won radio success with a Giles Cooper Award for his radio drama Cigarettes and Chocolate^{[4][dead link]} first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. It was revived on 3 May 2008 as a tribute to its author director following his death. His production starred Juliet Stevenson, Bill Nighy and Jenny Howe. His first radio play Hang Up, starring Anton Lesser and Juliet Stevenson, was revived on 10 May 2008 as part of the BBC Radio 4 Minghella season.^[5]

Minghella's 1990 feature Truly, Madly, Deeply, a drama he had written and directed for the BBC's Screen Two anthology strand, bypassed its expected TV broadcast and received a cinema release. In order to make the film, he had turned down an offer to direct another episode of Inspector Morse, which he had thought would be a much higher-profile assignment.

In 1996, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The pilot episode of the television adaptation of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which he co-wrote and directed, was broadcast on BBC One shortly after his death on 23 March 2008; it was watched by 6.3 million viewers.

He vocally supported I Know I'm Not Alone, a film of musician Michael Franti's peacemaking excursions into Iraq, Palestine and Israel.

He directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party in 2005. The short film depicted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown working together and was criticised for being insincere: "The Anthony Minghella party political broadcast last year was full of body language fibs", said Peter Collett, a psychologist at the University of Oxford. "When you are talking to me, I'll give you my full attention only if I think you are very high status or if I love you. On that party political broadcast, they are staring at each other like lovers. It is completely false."^[6]

He returned to radio drama in 2006 with Eyes Down Looking on BBC Radio 3, starring Jude Law, Juliet Stevenson and David Threlfall to mark Samuel Beckett's 100th birthday celebrations.^[7]

Minghella made his operatic debut directing Puccini's Madama Butterfly. It was first seen at the English National Opera in London in 2005, at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius in March 2006 and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in September 2006. The Met's production has been transmitted live into movie theaters worldwide on March 7, 2008 part of the Met's HD series and is now available on DVD. The Anthony Minghella Theatre at the Quay Arts Centre on the Isle of Wight is named in his honour. Minghella also made an appearance in the 2007 film Atonement, playing a television host interviewing the novelist whose role was central to the story. Minghella died the day the film was released on DVD.

Minghella's last work was the screenplay of the film adaptation of the 1982 Tony Award-winning musical Nine, based on the film 8½, book by Arthur Kopit, score by Maury Yeston. Minghella worked with Michael Tolkin on the screenplay, with whom he shared credit.

Personal life[link]

Minghella was married to Hong Kong–born choreographer Carolyn Choa. His brother, Dominic Minghella, is the creator of the popular British television series Doc Martin, and a scriptwriter. Minghella's son, Max, is an actor. His daughter Hannah worked as a production assistant on The Talented Mr. Ripley, and is currently President of Sony Pictures Animation.^[8] His sister Loretta is Director of Christian Aid,^[9] his sister Edana participated in a jazz event on the Isle of Wight, and his nephew Dante is one of the participants in Channel 4's Child Genius series.

He was a big Portsmouth fan and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Hallowed Be Thy Game. His home had two double bedrooms dedicated to the display of Portsmouth memorabilia dating back to the club's founding in 1898.^[10][11]

Minghella died of a haemorrhage on 18 March 2008 in Charing Cross Hospital, London, following an operation the previous week to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck.^[12][13]

Filmography[link]

Director[link]

Producer[link]

Actor[link]

Selected plays[link]

• Whale Music (New End Theatre, Hampstead, June 1981); revived for radio, BBC Radio 4, 10 May 2008
• Two Planks And A Passion^[14] (Greenwich Theatre, November 1984)
• A Little Like Drowning (Hampstead Theatre, July 1984)
• Made in Bangkok (West End debut as a playwright, Aldwych Theatre. 18 March 1986, director Michael Blakemore)
• Hang Up (radio play for BBC Radio 4,1987)
• Cigarettes and Chocolate (60-minute radio play for BBC Radio 4, 1988)
• Eyes Down Looking (Beckett 100th Birthday tribute, radio play for BBC Radio 3, 1 April 2006)