Sir David Lean (25 March 1908 – 16 April 1991) was an English filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and editor, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, and A Passage to India. Acclaimed and praised by directors such as Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, Lean was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute Sight & Sound "Directors ...
more
Sir David Lean (25 March 1908 – 16 April 1991) was an English filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and editor, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, and A Passage to India. Acclaimed and praised by directors such as Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, Lean was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute Sight & Sound "Directors Top Directors" poll 2002. Lean has four films in the top eleven of the British Film Institute's Top 100 British Films.
He was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London), to Francis William le Blount Lean and the former Helena Tangye. His parents were Quakers and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded Leighton Park School in Reading. His younger brother, Edward Tangye Lean (1911–1974), founded the original Inklings literary club when a student at Oxford University.
Lean started at the bottom, as a clapperboard assistant. By 1930 he was...
less
