Brian Gibson
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in Reading, BerkshireReading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, he studied Natural Sciences at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge graduating with an upper-second, and then History of Science at Darwin College, Cambridge
Darwin College, Cambridge
Darwin College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.Founded in 1964, Darwin was Cambridge University's first graduate-only college, and also the first to admit both men and women. The college is named after the family of one of the university's most famous graduates, Charles Darwin...
. He intended to become a doctor, but became interested in journalism and edited Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
, the Cambridge University magazine.
After travelling in Turkey, Israel and Syria, Brian started at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
as a research assistant for Rene Cutforth
René Cutforth
René Cutforth was a British broadcaster and writer.Reynolds Cutforth came from Woodville, Burton on Trent, and was educated at Denstone College which he entered in September 1922...
's program, "Europa." He then produced several excellent editions of Horizon, a science TV magazine. Gibson received a BAFTA award and the 1975 Prix Italia
Prix Italia
The Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...
for the "Horizon" episode Joey, based on "Tongue tied" the story of a brain-damaged child, by Joey Deacon
Joey Deacon
Joseph John "Joey" Deacon was a British author and television personality.-Biography:Joseph "Joey" Deacon was born with severe cerebral palsy, a neurological condition which left him with a muscular "spastic pattern", particularly arms and legs, resulting in a tendency of muscular tonus in the...
who, in his adult life, found a handicapped friend to unlock his latent intellect.
After this he made The Billion Dollar Bubble
The Billion Dollar Bubble
The Billion Dollar Bubble is a 1976 film directed by Brian Gibson....
, which introduced James Woods
James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
to British audiences, and Gossip from the Forest
Gossip from the Forest
Gossip from the Forest is a novel by the Australian author Thomas Keneally which deals with the negotiations surrounding the ending of World War I.-Subject matter:...
with John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel is an English actor.Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel....
. He went on to direct Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
's Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills
Blue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30, 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....
with, among others, Colin Welland
Colin Welland
Colin Welland is a British actor and screenwriter. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his script for Chariots of Fire ,,,....
, Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
and John Bird
John Bird (actor)
John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...
, as well as Breaking Glass
Breaking Glass
Breaking Glass is a 1980 British film starring Hazel O'Connor, Phil Daniels and Jonathan Pryce. The film was co-produced by Dodi Fayed and written and directed by Brian Gibson. The film was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival....
with Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after World War II to work in a car plant...
, Phil Daniels
Phil Daniels
Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...
and Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
.
In Hollywood, he directed Poltergeist II and HBO specials which included biographies of Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
and Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
. He followed up with the Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
biopic, What's Love Got to Do with It, and The Juror
The Juror
The Juror is a 1996 American romantic thriller film based on the novel by George Dawes Green, directed by Brian Gibson and starring Demi Moore as Annie Laird, a single mother picked for jury duty for a mafia trial. The film was released on 2 February 1996...
. In 1998, he directed his last film, Still Crazy
Still Crazy
Still Crazy is a 1998 comedy film about a fictional 1970s rock band named "Strange Fruit", who, after being split up for several decades, are persuaded to get back together to perform at a reunion of the same concert venue where they played their last gig...
.
Gibson married the leading lady of his television film "The Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
Story" Lynn Whitfield
Lynn Whitfield
Lynn Whitfield is an American actress.Whitfield began her acting career in television and theatre, before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special and a NAACP Image Award for her performance as Josephine Baker in the...
. They had a daughter named Grace Gibson and divorced in 1992. He remarried, to Paula Rae Gibson
Paula Rae Gibson
Paula Rae Gibson is a photographer, singer-songwriter and filmmaker. She is the widow of film director Brian Gibson and has one daughter.-Work:...
and had another daughter before he died of Ewing's sarcoma, a form of cancer, at his London home in 2004. He was 59 years old.
Filmography
- 1974 : Horizon (BBC TV series) (ep: Joey)
- 1976 : The Billion Dollar BubbleThe Billion Dollar BubbleThe Billion Dollar Bubble is a 1976 film directed by Brian Gibson....
- 1976 : Where Adam StoodWhere Adam StoodWhere Adam Stood is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976. It is a free adaptation of Edmund Gosse's autobiographical book Father and Son .-Synopsis:...
- 1979 : ScreenplayScreenplayA screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
(série TV) - 1979 : Gossip from the ForestGossip from the ForestGossip from the Forest is a novel by the Australian author Thomas Keneally which deals with the negotiations surrounding the ending of World War I.-Subject matter:...
- 1979 : Blue Remembered HillsBlue Remembered HillsBlue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on January 30, 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series....
- 1980 : Breaking GlassBreaking GlassBreaking Glass is a 1980 British film starring Hazel O'Connor, Phil Daniels and Jonathan Pryce. The film was co-produced by Dodi Fayed and written and directed by Brian Gibson. The film was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival....
- 1983 : Kilroy Was Here
- 1986 : Poltergeist II: The Other SidePoltergeist II: The Other SidePoltergeist II: The Other Side is a 1986 horror film. A sequel to Poltergeist, it features the return of the original's family and once again sees a spirit trying to harm their daughter, Carol Anne. It received mixed reviews from critics and did not gross as much at the box office as its...
- 1989 : Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story
- 1990 : Drug Wars: The Camarena StoryDrug Wars: The Camarena StoryDrug Wars: The Camarena Story is a 1990 TV mini-series based on Elaine Shannon’s book Desperados and the Time magazine article of the same name. It was directed by Brian Gibson and starred Steven Bauer, Miguel Ferrer, Benicio del Toro, Treat Williams and Craig T. Nelson...
- 1991 : The Josephine Baker StoryThe Josephine Baker StoryThe Josephine Baker Story is a 1991 television movie that debuted on the TV Broadcasting System, HBO. The movie told the life of that of Josephine Baker, an African-American, who rose to popularity in France, in the late-1920s, with her "banana dance"; meaning she wore only bananas on her bottom,...
- 1993 : What's Love Got to Do with It
- 1996 : The JurorThe JurorThe Juror is a 1996 American romantic thriller film based on the novel by George Dawes Green, directed by Brian Gibson and starring Demi Moore as Annie Laird, a single mother picked for jury duty for a mafia trial. The film was released on 2 February 1996...
- 1998 : Still CrazyStill CrazyStill Crazy is a 1998 comedy film about a fictional 1970s rock band named "Strange Fruit", who, after being split up for several decades, are persuaded to get back together to perform at a reunion of the same concert venue where they played their last gig...