Hugh Hudson
Hugh Hudson (born
25 August 1936) is a
British Academy Award-nominated
film director.
Hudson was born in
London, the eldest son of a family of affluent landowners; he was educated at
Eton and
Harvard University. He then embarked on a rewarding career in
advertising, producing, alongside fellow British director
Ridley Scott, many prizewinning adverts. This allowed him entrance to the world of
film-making; his first job was as a second-unit director on
Alan Parker's
Midnight Express.
Catching the eye of producer
David Puttnam, Hudson was put in charge of what is his now regarded as his most accomplished and well-known film,
Chariots of Fire (
1981), the story of two British track runners, one a devout
Christian and the other an ambitious
Jew, in the run-up to the
1924 Olympic Games. The film is said to have revitalized the fading British film industry, and it won four
Academy Awards, including
Best Picture; Hudson earned a nomination for
Best Director.
After this success, Hudson's later productions were largely disappointing, including the only partially successful
Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), and the notorious flop
Revolution (
1985), which depicted the
American War of Independence, and which crippled what could have been a prosperous career in
Hollywood for Hudson. Instead, his film output since has been scarce and uninspiring. He currently lives in
Los Angeles, and is planning to direct an adaptation of
Haruki Murakami's book
Norwegian Wood in the near future.
