John Howard Davies
Director · 1939 – 2011 · London, England, UK
John Howard Davies (born Paddington, London; 9 March 1939 — 22 August 2011) was a British television director, producer and former child actor. Davies was the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies. His credits as a child actor include the title role in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948), The Rocking Horse Winner (1949), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951) and a few episodes of the television series William Tell (1958). After school at Haileybury, further education at Grenoble and National Service in the Royal Navy, he started working in the City in a finance company. After that, he trained as a carpet salesman but quit after six months to travel the world. Ending up in Australia he returned to acting and met his wife Leonie when they both appeared in The Sound of Music. Back in Britain, he tried selling oil to industry in Wembley and then became a production assistant in the BBC at the end of 1968. Davies is best known for his adult career as director and producer of several highly successful British sitcoms, including All Gas and Gaiters, Fawlty Towers (series 1), The Goodies, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, The Good Life, No Job for a Lady and Mr. Bean. Davies was also the producer and director of the sketch show The World of Beachcomber and the earliest episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He also directed several episodes of The Vicar of Dibley. He became the BBC's Head of Comedy from 1977-1982, then head of Light Entertainment and finally Controller Managing Director of EMI Television Productions and the Head of Light Entertainment at ITV broadcaster Thames Television. During the last role, he was cited by the popular press as the man who 'sacked' comedian Benny Hill when the station decided not to renew his contract after 20 years' service. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Howard Davies, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Movies8
Movie7.6DramaAdventureWhen 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Oliver Twist
1948 · 263 votes
Movie6.5DramaNow old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green. He changed his name to include his first wife's for the photographic portrait work he excelled at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.
The Magic Box
1952 · 25 votes
Movie6.0DocumentaryA look behind the scenes of satirical sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News.
Not Again: Not the Nine O'Clock News
2009 · 1 votes
Movie8.4DocumentaryComedy30 years after Fawlty Towers (1975) ended, Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about the making of this classic sitcom.
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
2009 · 5 votes
Movie7.0DramaIn 1830s England, Tom Brown attends a rugby boys' school, where his moral and personal growth is formed through friendship, bullying–particularly from the cruel Flashman–and the influence of headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold.
Tom Brown's Schooldays
1951 · 9 votes
MovieA look at the careers of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam in the years after Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969).
Movie6.5DramaA strange and tragic tale of a young boy who is able to predict race winners at the horse track by riding his own rocking horse to aid his parents out of their endless round of debts.
The Rocking Horse Winner
1949 · 25 votes
MovieWhat was it really like behind the scenes of The Good Life? With contributions from Richard Briers, Penelope Keith, Monty Don, Brian Sewell and John O'Farrell.
Series2
TV6.8Action & AdventureThe Adventures of William Tell is a British swashbuckler adventure series, first broadcast on the ITV network in 1958, and produced by ITC Entertainment.
The Adventures of William Tell
1958 · 4 votes
- TV9.0
About Religion was a UK religious affairs programme on Associated Television (ATV) 1958–1965. It was usually hosted by interviewer Julian Grenfell, with David King and John Brooking. An anthology of interviews was published in 1963.
About Religion
1956 · 1 votes