Film director best known for his work on the Up series
Michael Apted, who has died aged 79, was a prolific British film director, with a slew of acclaimed and commercially successful films to his name, from
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988) to the 1999 Bond film The
World Is Not Enough. But his most enduring legacy will be the Granada TV documentary he first worked on as a young researcher, in 1964. Inspired by the Jesuit saying “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”,
Seven Up! featured 14 children aged seven from a range of backgrounds, who were interviewed about their lives, their hopes and their expectations. There was a trio of prep school boys who already knew they were destined for Oxbridge; there were Paul and Symon, growing up in a children’s home; and Nick, the son of a farmer, striding around a muddy lane in oversized wellies. It was conceived as a oneoff programme for World in Action about the British class system, but it made such an impact, Apted ended up re-interviewing his subjects every seven years for the next 55 years: when he revisited them for what proved to be the last time in 2019, they were 63.
The series has been described as one of the most influential ever made; but later, Apted reflected that he should have taken more care in selecting the children. For one thing, there were only four girls in the line-up, and they all settled early on into domestic life. As a result, he said, the series “missed the boat” on the “biggest social revolution” of his lifetime: the changing role of women in society. He also regretted that so many of the children came from the extreme ends of the social scale. But viewers, many of whom had themselves grown up with the series, were fascinated by the way the participants’ lives unfolded, with their ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies. There was Neil, the charming, buttonbright seven-year-old who hoped to become an astronaut, but flunked his Oxford exams, struggled with mental illness, and became homeless; chatterbox Tony from Bethnal Green who only briefly fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a jockey, but was last seen living comfortably with his wife, Debbie, in the countryside; gentle Bruce, who wanted to become a missionary, became a teacher in Bangladesh and Hackney – and gave a home to Neil; and Lynn, one of a trio of friends at the same East End primary school, who hoped to work in Woolworths, but became a children’s librarian – and died after the release of 56 Up.
As they’d got older, some participants had started to resent the intrusiveness of the series, and said that it gave a skewed impression of their lives. A few dropped out for particular instalments. One cut ties completely at 21. Apted, who described the series as his life’s work, was close to some of the “children”, and said he felt a responsibility to all of them; but he admitted that this sometimes conflicted with his instincts as a film-maker. “You want dramatic things to happen to them to make the film exciting,” he said. “On the other hand, how can you wish that?”
The son of an insurance broker, Michael Apted was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1941. He was a shy boy whose mother used to walk him to school to make sure he wasn’t bullied. He won a scholarship to City of London School, and went from there to Downing College, Cambridge. After Seven
Up!, he directed episodes of Coronation Street, as well as various dramas. He made his first feature film in 1972, and moved to America in 1980 to direct Coal Miner’s Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek. In Hollywood, he was known for films with strong female leads. Apted’s first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his third wife, Paige, and three of his four children.