Above all, he was a teller of stories
From ‘Gandhi’ all the way to ‘Jurassic Park’
As a director and producer, Richard Attenborough specialized in illustrating the real world on the big screen.
Yet to millions of American moviegoers, Attenborough was the welcoming face and voice of a distant world.
Film fans worldwide lost both when the Oscar-winning filmmaker died Sunday. He was 90.
Though he would win two Oscars for 1982’s biopic Gandhi, which earned Academy Awards for best picture and best director, Attenborough became better known for his role as John Hammond in 1993’s Jurassic Park, a role he would reprise in 1997’s
The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Still, Attenborough hardly was a late bloomer to Hollywood. The Cambridge-born filmmaker spent more than 60 years as actor, director and producer exploring racism, war, apartheid and inner demons in movies that included The Great Escape in 1963, Cry Freedom in 1987 and Chaplin in 1992. Other roles would include The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Sand Pebbles (1966) and Doctor Dolittle (1967), the last two of which would earn him a Golden Globe for supporting roles.
Yet it was his turn as the brilliant but naive Jurassic Park creator that catapulted him to U.S. stardom. The performance would prompt him to revive his acting career; he would star in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and in Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth.
And despite a stroke that sapped his health, Attenborough never lost his love of filmmaking. In May 2012 he teamed with Martin Scorsese and Anthony Haas to develop Silver Ghost, a drama about the founding of Rolls Royce. Attenborough was to direct, but his declining health pushed back the production, now scheduled for release in 2016.
Throughout, Attenborough’s mission never changed.
“I have no interest in being remembered as a great creative filmmaker,” he once said. “I want to be remembered as a storyteller.”
He will be remembered as both.