Leslie Halliwell
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Leslie Robert James Halliwell (February 23, 1929 - January 29, 1989) was a British motion picture historian and encyclopedist who shaped domestic tastes through his career as a buyer for Television stations.
Life
Born in Bolton, Lancashire, Halliwell was captivated by the films from an early age. A boy from a modest background, he won a scholarship to Bolton School and after National Service he studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge before holding a number of jobs in film journalism and cinema management.After working for a decade as a researcher and buyer for Southern Television and then Granada Television, in 1968 he took responsibility for purchasing for the entire ITV network. In 1982, at the personal invitiation of Jeremy Isaacs, he became buyer of U.S. films for Channel 4. He retired in 1986.
Halliwell's personal tastes were conservative. He had a preference for the cinema of the 1930s and 1940s and no great appetite for foreign-language films. In his "Film Guide", he gave ratings of 0 stars to 4 stars for films; however, with films from 1970 onwards,not one was given a rating of 4 stars, reflecting his general dislike of modern cinema. John Walker, who took over the editorship after his death, has changed these ingrained opinions and is more liberal with film ratings. Halliwell's professional knowledge of the entire gamut of cinema is still seen in his encyclopedias The Filmgoers' Companion (first published 1965), Halliwell's Film Guide (first published 1977) and Halliwell's Television Companion (first published 1979 as Halliwell's Teleguide).
After his retirement, he wrote for the Daily Mail. He also published a number of historical and critical works about the cinema.
He married Ruth Porter in 1959 and they had one son. Halliwell died of cancer in a hospice in Esher, Surrey.
Bibliography
- Halliwell, L. (from 1965) The Filmgoers' Companion ISBN 0002557983
- - (1965) Mountain of Dreams: the Golden Years of Paramount ISBN 0246108258
- - (from 1977) Halliwell's Film Guide ISBN 0007144121
- - (from 1979) Halliwell's Television Companion ISBN 0586083790
- - (1982) Halliwell's Hundred ISBN 0246113308
- - (1985) Seats in All Parts: Half a Lifetime at the Movies ISBN 0246124784
- - (1986) ''Halliwell's Harvest' ISBN 0684185180
- - (1986) The Dead that Walk ISBN 0804423008
- - (1987) Double Take and Fade Away ISBN 0246128356
- - (1987) Return to Shangri-La ISBN 0586070818
- Halliwell, L. & Murray, G. (1975) The Clapperboard Book of the Cinema ISBN 0246108142
External links
- Baker, A.P. (2004) ‘Halliwell, (Robert James) Leslie (1929-1989)’, rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,
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