Cemeteries and graveyards, full of love, betrayal, tragic deaths, murder, and suicide. What will you find?

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Jack Clayton - Film Director




Taphophilia is a passion for and enjoyment of cemeteries. The singular term is a taphophile.


Memorial to Jack Clayton, St James the Less Churchyard, Bisham, Berkshire.


"Jack Clayton 1921 - 1995 film director
You walked tallest amongst men my love."



Jack Clayton was born on 1st March 1921 in brighton.  He started his career in film as a child actor in 1929 on the film Dark Red Roses.  Later he worked at Denham Film Studios, working his way up from tea boy to assistant director.

In 1944 while serving with the Royal Airforce during World War II, Jack shot his first film.  A documentary Naples is a Battlefield.  His first feature was the internationally acclaimed Room at the Top in 1959, a harsh indictment of the British class system, which won two Oscarsand earned Clayton a Best Director nomination.

Other films directed by Jack Clayton include, The Innocents (1961),  The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Our Mother's House (1967), The Great Gatsby (1974), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1988).  In 1993 he produced and directed a Film for the BBC, Memento Mori.

Jack married actress Christine Norden (born Mary Lydia Thornton) in 1947, they divorced in 1953, in the same year he married Katherine Kath (born Lily Faess) who he was to divorce also.  Finally he married actress Haya Haraneet, who he remained married to until his death on 26th February 1995 in Slough, Berkshire.


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4 comments:

  1. Although I have heard of, and remember seeing, some of the movies you listed, I was not familiar with his name.

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    1. Sadly I was both unfamiliar with both Jack Clayton and his films. That fact that his gravestone was so different to the others around it was what drew me to him.

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  2. what a lovely sentiment on the other side of his stone!

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    1. It is lovely. I only noticed it on my second visit to the churchyard.

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