Peter Whitehead (filmmaker)


Peter Lorrimer Whitehead was an English writer and filmmaker known for documenting the counterculture movement in London and New York in the late 1960s.
WWW peterwhitehead.net

Early life and career

Peter Whitehead was born in Liverpool, England, into a working-class family. He received a scholarship to attend Ashville College, Harrogate, where he was top of his class in almost all subjects and was both captain of the rugby team and the church organist. This success led him to receive another scholarship from Peterhouse, Cambridge, to study mathematics, physics and chemistry. However, after completing his National Service, he switched his focus to physiology, mineralogy and crystallography. He later studied art and film at the Slade School of Art in London.
After leaving Cambridge, Whitehead began his career as a filmmaker. He is best known for directing promotional film clips, including a version of "Interstellar Overdrive" for Pink Floyd and several clips for The Rolling Stones. In 1966, Whitehead, together with the novelist and historian Andrew Sinclair, founded Lorrimer Publishing, which published the original screenplays of classic films. Sheridan Morley wrote: "Their format is a simple one: the script itself, with detailed descriptions where action takes over from the words, published with a brief introduction and sideline notes where necessary."
In 1969, Whitehead left filmmaking behind and retreated to the desert in Morocco, which he began his career as a falconer.

''The Falconer''

In 1997, Iain Sinclair collaborated with Chris Petit, sculptor Steve Dilworth, digital artist Dave McKean and others to make The Falconer, a 56-minute semi-fictional "documentary" film about Whitehead, set in London and the Outer Hebrides. Sinclair described Whithead's engagement with the film in 2003, stating, "Initially he loved the film... his determination to tell his story was such that he kept bombarding us with amazing fragments and endless images, because he's one of the few people whose entire life was documented in images". The film also features Stewart Home, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks.

Books

Whitehead's books include Nora, Hartshead Revisited: A Fiction? and Bronte Gate. His novels include The Risen and Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts.
In 1997 Whitehead published Baby Doll, drawing on photographs he took in 1972 during production of his feature-length film Daddy. Many of the photographs are of model/actress/heiress Mia Martin. The writer Iain Sinclair later described Daddy as a "nightmarish film... shot in some chateau in France... unspeakable... I couldn't even bring myself to look at the material in the book".

Documentary

Paul Cronin produced a two-part documentary featuring new and archival interviews with Whitehead, along with extracts from his work.

Personal life and later years

During his time at Cambridge, Whitehead met Diane Cottrill and had two daughters, Tamsin and Sian. In 1959, he met Swedish student Britt Svensson, whom he married in Stockholm in 1960. They moved to London but divorced in 1964. In the 1960s, he met the actress Coral Atkins and had a son, Harry. In 1979, he formed a relationship with Deanna Jones, and they had a daughter Joanna Woodrow.
In 1980, he met Dido Goldsmith, the daughter of Teddy Goldsmith and niece of Sir James Goldsmith. They married six weeks after meeting and had four daughters, Robin, Leila, Charlene and Rosetta. Robin Whitehead, a film maker and photographer, died from a heroin overdose on 24 January 2010 at the age of 27. Her family alleged that Robin's involvement with the musician Pete Doherty and his circle of friends contributed to her death.
Whitehead died in London on 10 June 2019, at the age of 82.

Filmography

Music promos