Philip Saville


Philip Saville was a British director, screenwriter and former actor whose career lasted half a century. The British Film Institute's Screenonline website described Saville as "one of Britain's most prolific and pioneering television and film directors". His work included 45 contributions to Armchair Theatre and he won two Best Drama Series BAFTAs for Boys from the Blackstuff and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil.

Early life

Saville was born Philip Saffer on 28 October 1927 at Marylebone, London, son of Louis Saffer, a travelling salesman for a clothing company, and Sadie Kathleen, née Tanenberg, supervisor of Fortnum & Mason's women's fashion department at Piccadilly.
He studied science at London University and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals was ended by his discharge after he sustained a serious knee injury involving an armoured vehicle.

Career

From the 1950s, Saville worked in television as a director working on plays such as Harold Pinter's A Night Out for ABC's Armchair Theatre anthology series. He directed over 40 plays for Armchair Theatre and helped pioneer the innovative visual style it became known for, including rapid and intricate camera movements during the often live productions. The critic John Russell Taylor, however, wrote that Saville had submerged the romance "Duel for Love" "under intricate camerawork of exquisite beauty and complete irrelevance".
Saville also directed Madhouse on Castle Street for the BBC, an example "of his interest in psychological states and subjective viewpoints", according to Oliver Wake. The production was the first acting appearance of the folk singer Bob Dylan, whom Saville had flown over specifically to take part in the play. Saville's production of Hamlet at Elsinore for the BBC pioneered the use of videotape for location recording. An anonymous reviewer in The Times wrote that Saville "while creating handsome pictures, did not allow the setting to distract him from the business of the play". He also worked on an episode of Out of the Unknown, a version of the E.M. Forster short story "The Machine Stops" in this period. This won the main prize at the 1967 Trieste international science fiction film festival.

Later career

Saville's significant later work includes Gangsters, Boys from the Blackstuff and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which both won BAFTAs for Best Drama Series. These were both recorded using the OB techniques he pioneered on Hamlet at Elsinore.
For the cinema, Saville directed The Fruit Machine, Metroland and The Gospel of John.
He also directed a masterclass studio in London specialising in dramatic improvisation. Saville's documentary on Harold Pinter Pinter's Progress for Sundance international television channels and UK's Sky Arts features numerous interviews with associates of the Nobel Prize–winning playwright.

Personal life

Saville was married to the actress, film and theatre director Jane Arden from 1947. The couple had two sons, but separated in the mid-1960s without divorcing. Jane Arden committed suicide in 1982. Saville had an affair with actress Pauline Boty whom he met during her student days and who later worked for him and with whom he had a daughter. The affair is said to have inspired the film Darling. He also had an eight-year relationship with actress Diana Rigg during the same period.
From the 1960s he lived in the former home of the artist Augustus John in St John's Wood, London. In 1987 Philip Saville married his second wife, Nina Francis and they had a son together.

Filmography

Actor

Director