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J. Lee Thompson
Life Time
1 August 1914 - 30 August 2002
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John Lee Thompson was born on August 1, 1914 in Bristol, England. He received his education at Dover College. His creative path in art he began as a playwright, he was not even twenty years old, and two of his plays were staged. Over time, Thompson himself took the stage, and in 1934 he made his film debut as an actor. Later, he also did script work. During World War II, J. Lee Thompson served in the Royal Air Force, managing to continue writing plays. After demobilization, he continued his career
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John Lee Thompson was born on August 1, 1914 in Bristol, England. He received his education at Dover College. His creative path in art he began as a playwright, he was not even twenty years old, and two of his plays were staged. Over time, Thompson himself took the stage, and in 1934 he made his film debut as an actor. Later, he also did script work. During World War II, J. Lee Thompson served in the Royal Air Force, managing to continue writing plays. After demobilization, he continued his career as a playwright, and in 1950 he got the opportunity to stage a film according to his script - Murder Without Crime. However, his debut went unnoticed, and only his second film, Yellow Balloon (1951), which became a box office success, allowed him to declare himself as a capable director. Thompson's films of the 1950s were not a resounding success, but they could not be called failures. He staged comedies, musicals, demonstrating a special gift in the genre of social drama. The breakthrough for the director was the military-adventure film "The Guns of Navaron Island" (1961), although he became the director of it at the last moment - the producers refused the services of the former director of the film. The international success of Guns, both among viewers and filmmakers, opened the way for Thompson to Hollywood, where he continued his work. With the support of Gregory Peck, the director staged the thriller Cape Fear (1962), in which Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum starred. In the future, the director's work was very unequal in quality, and he never managed to reach the heights of the 1950s - for each "McKenna's Gold" (1968) was his "Greek mogul" (1978). Refusing to stage the first film in the series “Planet of the Apes”, he then made “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (1972) and “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” (1973). Among other films by J. Lee Thomson, such films as “Ambassador” (1984), “King Solomon’s Mines” (1985), “Deathlust-4” (1987), “Dagger” (1989) and the television movie “The Great American Tragedy” (1972) deserve mention. J. Lee Thompson never stopped working in film until his last days. He died of heart failure on August 30, 2002 in Canada.