Don Boyd

Don Boyd
Born	Donald William Robertson Boyd (1948-08-11)11 August 1948 Nairn,Scotland
Alma mater	London Film School
Years active	1974 – present
Spouse	Hilary
Children	Amanda, Clare, Kate
Awards	Nominated Best Director Light Entertainment Series 1996, Nominated Grand Jury Prize Sundance 1991, Nominated Critics Award Deauville American Film Festival 1991, Nominated Joris Ivens Award for best documentary at Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2004, Nominated Best Documentary British Independent Film Awards 2005

Donald William Robertson Boyd(born 11 August 1948) is a Scottishfilm director,producer,screenwriterandnovelist.He was a Governor of theLondon Film Schooluntil 2016 and in 2017 was made anHonorary Professorin the College of Humanities atExeter University.

Biography

Boyd was brought up by his Scottish father and Russian mother in Hong Kong, Uganda and Kenya and educated at the noted Scottish public schoolLoretto SchoolinMusselburgh,East Lothian.After leaving school in 1965 he trained as an accountant in Edinburgh before enrolling in theLondon Film Schoolin 1968. He graduated in 1970 and began his career working for theBBCtelevision seriesTomorrow's World.After two years directing commercials for the likes ofCoca-Cola,ShellandChrysler,he directed his first feature film,Intimate Reflections,which premiered at theLondon Film Festivalin 1975.This was followed byEast of Elephant RockstarringJohn Hurt,which also premiered at the London Film Festival but gathered mainly hostile reviews.

In 1977 Boyd established his own production company, Boyd's Co., which over the next decade produced a series of British films includingAlan Clarke'sScum,Derek Jarman'sThe Tempest,Lindsay Anderson'sLook Back in AngerandJulien Temple'sThe Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.During this time his company featured the work of such actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and musicians as John Hurt,Ray Winstone,Dame Helen Mirren,Tilda Swinton,Stephen Fry,Michael Tolkin,Jeremy Thomas,Sarah Radclyffe,Bridget Fonda,Kathy Burke,The Edge,andThe Sex Pistols.

In 1978 Boyd collaborated on and helped finance Ron Peck's and Paul Hallam's 1978Nighthawks,described byTime Outas "Britain's first committed gay feature film", which attracted controversy in the UK at the time promptingChannel 4to delay its broadcast until 1984.

Many of Boyd's films at this time, includingScum,Sweet William,and Derek Jarman'sThe Tempestattracted investors because their financing incorporated tax avoidance schemes devised by his business partner and close friend the tax accountant (also arts patron and benefactor)Roy Tucker.These schemes were funded by theRossminster banking group.Rossminster attracted adverse media attention, especially from the notedSunday Timesfinancial journalistLorana Sullivan,and was discussed in parliament.

At least £100 million in lost taxes is involved. According toGranada'sWorld in Actionprogramme, it could be as much as £1,000 million - equal to more than a penny on income tax for the rest of us.

In 1981The House of Lordseffectively ruled many ofTucker's schemes invalidleaving most of Rossminster's customers, including Boyd's investors, unable to garner any tax relief from his schemes after 1975.The total potential loss to the exchequer before Rossminster's activities were curtailed was eventually estimated at £362 million while the tax eventually returned (with interest) estimated at £500 million.

Tax avoidance schemes had been commonly used for years by celebrities in the entertainment world to protect their income and had been used for some years in the US to finance films. Tucker, whose interest at least initially was as much as a patron of the arts as devising tax schemes, and Boyd were among the first in the UK to provide them to finance films.The film critic and historianAlexander Walkercommented that financing films in such ways became a common practice at the time but suggested that ultimately it was self-defeating because the government of the day might well have concluded that if the British film industry was so good at inventing financial self-help of this sort then it had no need of government assistance.Indeed, the1985 Films Act,pushed through parliament byNorman Lamont,a fellow alumnus of Boyd's at Loretto School, despite all-party protest, dismantled all subsidies to the British film industry.Boyd severed his link with Tucker in 1984.

Boyd moved toHollywoodin the early 1980s for a two-year period, where he worked at bothParamount PicturesandUniversal Studiosand producedJohn Schlesinger's 1981 $24 million comedyHonky Tonk Freeway.

Boyd returned to the UK in 1982 and attempted to resume his directorial career withGossip,which was to be a satire on celebrity life in the earlyThatcheryears based on an original treatment byFrances Lynn.The production ran into financial difficulties – Boyd was the victim of an elaborate fraud – and the film collapsed after just two weeks' shooting.

Dan North, a lecturer in film in the Department of English at Exeter University, has chronicledGossipinSights Unseen: Unfinished British Filmsedited by North.Stephen Fry was given his first job in film by Boyd as a script rewriter forGossipand its story is recounted by him inThe Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography.Fry is supportive of Boyd in his book

The film collapsed... The upshot was that poor Don, one of the kindest and best of men, was effectively blacklisted and prevented from participating in film production for three years. Even that didn't end it, for once Don managed to start up again the unions insisted he continue to pay over what negligible producing fees he did earn. By 1992 he was financially wiped out...

In 1987 Boyd produced the multi-directorial opera filmAriawhich featured segments byRobert Altman,Bruce Beresford,Bill Bryden,Jean-Luc Godard,Derek Jarman,Franc Roddam,Nicolas Roeg,Ken Russell,Charles Sturridgeand Julien Temple. It was the closing night film, nominated for thePalme d'Orat theCannes Film Festivalin 1987, featured at numerous other major festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival and enjoyed multiple successful worldwide theatrical release.

After producing Derek Jarman'sWar Requiem,for the BBC in 1988, which wasLaurence Olivier's last film, Boyd returned to his directorial career. He directed for ITV television the biopicGoldeneyestarringCharles DanceasIan Fleming,the creator of James Bond. He directed low-budget independent feature films such asTwenty-One,written byZoë Hellerand featuringPatsy Kensitas female lead;Kleptomania,co-scripted by Christa Lang, widow ofSamuel Fuller;Lucia,based on Walter Scott's novelThe Bride of Lammermoorand Donizetti's opera and featuring his daughter Amanda in the title role;andMy Kingdom,a contemporary version of King Lear, which featuredRichard Harrisin his last leading role whose performance was nominated for aBritish Independent Film Award.SimilarlyTwenty-Oneearned Patsy Kensit a nomination for anIndependent Spirit Award for Best Female Leadand was well received at itsSundancepremiere earning Boyd direction a nomination.He further directed over twenty television documentaries including aBAFTAandPrix Italianominated film featuring the comedianRuby Waxin a documentary aboutImelda Marcos;Andrew and Jeremy Get Married,adocumentary filmportrait of acommitment ceremonywhich had its world premiere at theToronto International Film Festivalin 2004 and was broadcast on theBBCas part of theirStoryvilledocumentary series;Full Frontal in Flip Flops,a documentary film portrait ofnaturismforITV;andDonald and Luba: A Family Movie,an 'intimate family documentary' in which he and his 22-year-old filmmaker daughter Kate chronicled his parents' failed marriage (inter aliasuggesting Boyd's father was a British spy during theMau-Maurebellion) and which was filmed on location inHarbin,Hong Kong,Jinja,Kyiv,London,NairobiandShanghaifor the BBC.

TheNational Film Theatrepresented a season of his films in 1982 culminating in a Guardian Lecture with the film criticDerek Malcolm.

In 2001 Boyd wrote an 8,000-word memoir for The Observer revealing that he had been sexually abused by a teacher while a student atLoretto Schoolin the 1960s.The teacher was arrested and charged on the basis of other allegations that emerged. When the case came to court in Scotland the accused man's legal team pleaded that he was too ill to attend trial and the case was placed on file.

The University of Exeter awarded him anhonoraryDoctor of Letters(DLitt) in 2009.Previously he had been an Honorary Visiting Professorin the College of Humanities between 2005 and 2015. Boyd had earlier donated his personal and business papers documenting his 30-year film career at that point to the university'sCentre for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR).He has presented a series ofIn Conversationevents at the CIR with prominent cultural figures such asMike Leigh, Nicolas Roeg,and theDirector-General of the BBC,Mark Thompson,lectures at least three times annually and was instrumental in the university's academic relationship with the London Film School. In 2018 he initiated a series of Creative Dialogues at Exeter University with celebrated figures in the cultural arena - the first two, conducted by Boyd, were in depth conversations with the film star Charles Dance and the former editor of Vogue Alexandra Shulman.

Boyd's internet venture, Hibrow, 'the world's first independent Internet platform for freshly created content curated and produced by established visual and performing arts', went 'live' on 20 December 2011. It has instigated, produced and published 'free to view' online over 150 hours of arts programming with work involving numerous organisations and luminaries in the arts arenas including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Washington National Gallery of Art, the Tate St Ives, the Traverse Theatre, the British Library, the Klin Tchaikovsky Museum, the Barbican Cinema, the ICA, World Book Night, the Folio Society, Marrakech Biennale, and NODA. Featured in over 400 professionally produced videos is the work and contributions of scores of internationally recognised authors, actors, conductors, artists, directors, dancers, choreographers, poets, singers, musicians and curators. Between 2009 and 2015, Boyd has been personally responsible for the curation, production and presentation of this work funded by private investors and by the Arts Council of England.HiBROW - Welcome to HiBROW

Alexander Walker referred to him as 'the Boyd Wonder' in his 1985 bookNational Heroes: British Cinema in the 70's and 80'swhile Boyd describes himself in the same text as 'a director-orientated audience-conscious film-marketing editor'.

Writing

Boyd contributes toThe Guardiannewspaper,Time OutandThe Observerwhere his personal opinions as an informed insider have been balanced publicly with his championship of indigenous British cinema.

In 2006, in his role as the guest editor of theDirectors Guild of Great Britain'sannual magazineDirect,he persuaded 22 film-makers includingStephen Frears,Hanif Kureishi,Terence DaviesandCharles Danceto contribute articles and interviews to help consolidate the profile and public status of the unique pool of directorial talent in the United Kingdom.

In 2010 Boyd published his first novel,Margot's Secrets,a psychological thriller set in Barcelona about a therapist forced to confront her own adulterous secret following a series of violent ritualistic murders involving her clients.His wifeHilary,a granddaughter of the lateFrederick Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton,has also published fiction; her debut novel,Thursdays in the Park(2011), reached the top spot in the Amazon bestseller chart.

Filmography

Directed

• Intimate Reflections(1975)
• East of Elephant Rock(1977)
• Gossip(1982 unfinished)
• Goldeneye(1989)
• Twenty-One(1991)
• Kleptomania(1993)
• Lucia(1998)
• My Kingdom(2001)
• Andrew and Jeremy Get Married(2004)

Produced

• The Four Seasons(1977)
• Anti-Clock(1979)
• Blue Suede Shoes(1979)
• Hussy(1979)
• Scum(1979)
• The Tempest(1979)
• Sweet William(1980)
• The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle(1980)
• Look Back in Anger(1980)
• Honky Tonk Freeway(1981)
• An Unsuitable Job for a Woman(1982)
• Scrubbers(1982)
• Captive(1985)
• Aria(1987)
• The Last of England(1987)
• War Requiem(1988)
• The Girl with Brains in Her Feet(1997)

External links

• Don BoydatIMDb
• ProfileatThe Guardian