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Dateline: 21st March, 2008
Anthony Minghella (1954 - 2008) Writer and theatre and film director Anthony Minghella died on Tuesday 18th March of a haemorrhage after having surgery for cancer of the tonsils and neck in Charing Cross Hospital. He was 54. He was born in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where his parents ran an ice-cream factory. His interest in drama was sparked at Fairway Grammar School in Sandown (IoW) by teacher Gareth Pritchard, who taught English and directed him in school plays and whom he thanked in his Oscar acceptance speech (for The English Patient in 1997). He began his TV/film career as a runner on Magpie and later became a scriptwriter and editor on the children's soap Grange Hill. At the same time he was also writing plays. In 1984 he won the Critics' Circle Award for the most promising new playwright, for A Little Like Drowning, Love Bites and Two Planks and a Passion and then, two years later, for the award for best new play for Made in Bangkok. He went on to write for radio (Hang Up) and TV, scrioting a number of the Morse episodes and the entire series of The Storyteller, which starred John Hurt. In 1990 he wrote and directed Truly Madly Deeply, which starred Alan Rickman and Juliet Stephenson and which won a BAFTA for best original screenplay. In 1993 came Mr Wonderful, followed three years later by his greatest success, the nine-Oscar-winning The English Patient. Three years after that came The Talented Mr. Ripley (Oscar for best adaped screenplay), then Play (2001) and in 2003 Cold Mountain which won Renée Zellweger the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and was nominated for a further six awards. His latest work is an adaptation for television of Alexander McCall Smith's The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency which is due to be broadcast over the Easter weekend. His The Ninth Life of Louis Drax is still in production and he had a small cameo role in the film Atonement, playing the interviewer. In 2005 he made his opera debut, directing Madama Butterfly for Engish National Opera at the Coliseum. He was awarded the CBE in 2001.
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