John Boorman

Sir John Boorman (ˈbʊərmən; born 18 January 1933) is a British filmmaker. He is best known for directing feature films such as Point Blank (1967), Hell in the Pacific (1968), Deliverance (1972), Zardoz (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Excalibur (1981), The Emerald Forest (1985), Hope and Glory (1987), The General (1998), The Tailor of Panama (2001) and Queen and Country (2014). Boorman has directed 22 films and received five Academy Award nominations, twice for Best Director (for Deliverance, and Hope and Glory). He is also credited with creating the first Academy Award screeners to promote The Emerald Forest. In 2004, Boorman received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In January 2022, Boorman received a knighthood. Boorman was born in Shepperton, Middlesex, England, the son of pub landlord George Boorman and his wife, Ivy (née Chapman). George Boorman was of Dutch parentage. Although not Roman Catholic, he was sent to be educated at the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey. Boorman was conscripted for military service and became a clerical instructor in the British Army. He did not serve in the Korean War, but once faced court-martial for "seducing a soldier from the course of his duty" by criticising the war to his trainees; this was abandoned when Boorman showed that The Times newspaper was the source of all his comments. After army service he worked as a drycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s. He ran the newsrooms at Southern Television in Southampton and Dover before moving into television documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming head of the BBC's Bristol-based documentary unit. In 1963 he wrote and directed a documentary about professional football, Six Days to Saturday, which focused on a week in the life of Swindon Town, who were then in England's second division. Having caught the attention of a producer, David Deutsch, Boorman was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success of A Hard Day's Night (directed by Richard Lester in 1964): Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about another pop group, the Dave Clark Five.