Clive Donner, a British director who captured the mood of 1960s London and later worked extensively in television, died September 7, 2010, in London. He was 84.
According to news reports, the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
At the height of so-called "Swinging London" of the 1960s, Donner was one of the definitive filmmakers of the era. His best-known films of the period were an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker, Nothing But the Best, What’s New Pussycat? and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.
Donner did not begin directing until his thirties. His first film, in 1957, was The Secret Place, a heist drama featuring a young David McCallum.
He was born in London on January 21, 1926. His father was a concert violinist and his mother ran a dress shop. As a student at Kilburn Polytechnic school he made an 8-millimeter film, and soon after graduating he found work as an assistant in the editing room at Denham Studios.
After military service he returned to Denham and within a few years was hired as a full-fledged editor at Pinewood Studios, where he worked on such films as Scrooge, The Card, The Million Pound Note and I Am a Camera. His editing work eventually led to the director’s chair.
In addition to his features, he worked in television, including episodes of the British series Danger Man and Sir Francis Drake and the documentary Mighty and Mystical, for Granada Television.
After making such poorly received films as Luv and Alfred the Great, Donner’s feature opportunities waned, but his television opportunities increased. He directed numerous made-for-TV movies, including the well-received drama Rogue Male, starring Peter O’Toole, and adaptations of the Charles Dickens classics Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, both of which starred George C. Scott. Other television movies included The Scarlet Pimpernel, To Catch a King, Dead Man’s Folly and Stealing Heaven. He also made the miniseries Charlemagne.
His wife, former costume designer Jocelyn Rickards, died in 2005. He leaves no immediate survivors.