Hollywood producer wore many hats
Entered film world by chance in late 1950s
Richard Gregson, who has died aged 89, was a film producer, screenwriter and agent, and one-time husband of the American film actress Natalie Wood. For 20 years he was a leading figure in the film world of Hollywood and London, serving as agent for Robert Redford, John Schlesinger, Alan Bates and Frederic Raphael.
Gregson was born in Pune, India, on May 5, 1930, the youngest of the four children of Capt. Donald Gregson, 3rd Indian Cavalry and Violet Hanson.
Richard and his siblings spent the war years in Canada, and on his return to the United Kingdom he began work in a religious bookshop in London.
He entered the film world by chance in April 1958. The Rev. Robin Denniston took over the religious bookshop, swiftly detected Gregson’s lack of suitability and asked him where he saw his future. “I want to work in show business,” he replied.
By chance, some days later, Paul Scott came into the shop. He was a partner in the agency David Higham and Associates, seeking to expand the business into film and television. Denniston recommended Gregson and Scott took him on.
Gregson co-scripted the Academy Award-nominated film The Angry Silence (1960), with his brother Michael and Bryan Forbes, about a factory worker who refuses to take part in an unofficial strike. He also produced films such as Downhill Racer (1969), about an Alpine skier, starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman, and Cyrano (1973), the Broadway musical starring Christopher Plummer, for which Anthony Burgess wrote the lyrics.
Following marriage to and divorce from Sally Ronaldson, in the mid-1960s Gregson embarked on a long-distance romance with Natalie Wood, who later moved in with him in London. They married in May 1969, and had one daughter, Natasha, but they divorced the following year.
Sally Ronaldson, whom he married in 1958, was Gregson’s first wife. They had two daughters and a son. They were divorced, and she died in 2003.
In 1984 he married, thirdly, Julia Gregson, whose 2009 novel, East of the Sun, won numerous prizes. They settled in North Wales and had a daughter.