NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis CBE, (born 8 November 1956), is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, best known for the TV programmes Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley as well as movies such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually. Image File history File linksMetadata Richard. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Richard. ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Braun HF 1, Germany, 1958 OT-1471 Belweder, Poland, 1957 Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. ... Blackadder is the generic name that encompasses four series of an acclaimed BBC One historical sitcom, along with several one-off installments. ... Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. ... For places named Notting Hill, see Notting Hill. ... Love Actually is a romantic comedy first released in cinemas in October and November 2003. ...

In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. He also wrote the script for the music video for "Some Girls" by Rachel Stevens, directed by Paul Weiland, which became a #2 hit in the UK. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. ... Some Girls was a 2004 pop hit for UK pop star Rachel Stevens. ... Rachel Lauren Stevens (born April 9, 1978) is an English singer and an occasional actress and model. ...

Richard Curtis is married to script editor and broadcaster Emma Freud^[1], with whom he has four children. Emma Vallencey Freud (born January 25, 1962) is a British broadcaster and cultural commentator. ...

Early life

The son of an executive at Unilever, Curtis and his family lived in several different countries during his childhood, including Sweden and the Philippines. Part of the family still resides in Sydney, Australia. Curtis has lived in England since he was 11. His English school life began at Papplewick School, Ascot before he won a scholarship to Harrow, where he was head of school. He achieved a first-class degree in English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. At Oxford he met and began working with Rowan Atkinson. Unilever (Euronext: UNA, LSE: ULVR, NYSE: UN) is an Anglo-Dutch company that owns many of the worlds consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. ... This is about the city of Sydney in Australia. ... Harrow School, normally just known as Harrow, is one of the worlds most famous schools. ... College name Christ Church Named after Jesus Christ Established 1546 Sister College Trinity College Dean The Very Revd Christopher Andrew Lewis JCR President William Dorsey Undergraduates 426 MCR or GCR President {{{MCR President}}} Graduates 154 Home page Boat Club Christ Church (Latin: Ã†des Christi, the temple or house of Christ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Early writing career

Curtis was the co-writer with Philip Pope of the Hee Bee Gee Bees' single "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)" released in 1980 to parody the style of a series of Bee Gees disco hits. He then began to write comedy for film and TV. Philip Pope is a British composer and actor. ... Hee Bee Gee Bees were a pop group formed initially to parody the Bee Gees towards the close of their sequence of high-pitched, disco-style hits. ... The Bee Gees were a singing trio of brothers â€” Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb â€” that became one of the most successful musical acts of all time. ...

He was a regular writer on the TV series Not the Nine O'Clock News, where he wrote many of the show's songs with Howard Goodall and many sketches, often with Rowan Atkinson. Not the Nine OClock News (DVD) Not the Nine OClock News was a comedy television programme shown on the BBC, broadcast from 1979 to 1982. ... Howard Goodall Howard Goodall (b. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

With Atkinson, Curtis then worked from 1983-1989 on the Blackadder series, with each season about a different era in British history. Atkinson was the lead throughout. They followed this with the comedy series Mr. Bean. which ran from 1990-1995. Blackadder is the generic name that encompasses four series of an acclaimed BBC One historical sitcom, along with several one-off installments. ... Mr. ...

Film career

By this point, Curtis had already achieved his breakthrough success with the romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. The 1994 film, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was produced on a limited budget by the British production company Working Title Films. Working Title had already produced Curtis's 1989 film The Tall Guy, starring Jeff Goldblum. "Four Weddings" proved to be a colossal hit, the biggest grossing British film in history up to that point. It made an international star of Grant and Curtis's Oscar nomination for the script catapulted him to prominence. In addition, the film was nominated for Best Picture. Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. ... Hugh John Mungo Grant (born September 9, 1960 in London, England) is an English actor. ... Andie MacDowell Rosalie Anderson Andie MacDowell (born April 21, 1958 in Gaffney, South Carolina) is an American actress and former model. ... Current company logo, introduced in 1999. ... Thompson as Kate. ... Jeff Goldblum, 1985 Jeffrey Lynn Jeff Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an Academy Award nominated American film actor, known for his often quirky, intense or comedic characters (often scientists), distinctive appearance (dark haired and lanky, and at 6 feet 4 inches (1. ...

Curtis's next film would also be for Working Title, which has remained his artistic home ever since. 1999's Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, broke the record set by "Four Weddings" to become the top-grossing British film of all time. The story of a lonely travel bookstore owner who falls in love with the world's most famous movie star was directed by Roger Michell. Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film set in the Notting Hill district of London, England, UK. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis who had previously written Four Weddings and a Funeral. ... Hugh John Mungo Grant (born September 9, 1960 in London, England) is an English actor. ... Julia Roberts (born Julie Fiona Roberts on October 28, 1967) is an Academy Award-winning American actress and former fashion model, who shot to fame during the early 1990s after starring in the romantic comedy, Pretty Woman, opposite Richard Gere. ... Roger Michell (June 5, 1957 in Pretoria, South Africa) is a film director. ...

Curtis's next film for Working Title was not an original script. Instead, he was heavily involved with the adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary from novel to film. Curtis knew the novel's writer Helen Fielding. Indeed, he has credited her with saying that his original script for "Four Weddings" was too upbeat and needed the addition of a funeral. He is credited on "Bridget Jones" as co-writer. Bridget Joness Diary is a 1996 novel by Helen Fielding. ... Helen Fielding (born February 19, 1958 in Morley, West Yorkshire) is a British author, best known as the author of the novel Bridget Joness Diary and its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason The Bridget Jones books had their origins in a column published in The Independent and...

Two years later Curtis re-teamed with Working Title to write and direct Love Actually. Curtis has said in interviews that his favorite film is Robert Altman's Nashville and the sprawling, multi-character structure of Love Actually certainly seems to owe something to Altman. The film featured a who's who of British actors, including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman and Keira Knightley, in a loosely connected series of stories about people in and out of love in London in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Love Actually is a romantic comedy first released in cinemas in October and November 2003. ... Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925 â€“ November 20, 2006) was an American film director known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. ... Nashville is a 1975 film which mixes themes of U.S. presidential politics with those of the country music and gospel music businesses in Nashville, Tennessee. ... Love Actually is a romantic comedy first released in cinemas in October and November 2003. ... Hugh John Mungo Grant (born September 9, 1960 in London, England) is an English actor. ... Colin Firth Colin Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor. ... Thompson in the 1989 film The Tall Guy Emma Thompson (born April 15, 1959) is a two-time Academy Award and BAFTA-winning English actress, comedienne, and screenwriter. ... William John Liam Neeson OBE, born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland on June 7, 1952, is an Oscar-nominated Irish actor. ... Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born February 21, 1946) is an English stage and screen actor. ... Keira Christina Knightley (born March 26, 1985) is an Academy Award-nominated English[1] actress. ...

Curtis's most recently broadcast film is The Girl in the Cafe, produced by the BBC and HBO as part of the Make Poverty History campaign's Live 8 efforts. The film stars Bill Nighy as a civil servant and Kelly Macdonald as a young woman with whom he falls in love while at a G8 summit in Iceland. Macdonald's character pushes him to ask whether the developed countries of the world cannot do more to help the most impoverished. The film was timed to air just before the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. An HBO Film which premiered June 25, 2005. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of Â£4 billion. ... HBO (Home Box Office) is an American premium cable television network with headquarters in New York City. ... // The Make Poverty History campaign (which is written as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) was a British and Irish coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who mobilized around the UKs prominence in world politics in 2005 to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute... Official Live 8 DVD, released in November 2005 Live 8 (not to be confused with Live Aid) was a series of concurrent benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. ... Bill Nighy Bill Nighy (IPA: ; born December 12, 1949) is a BAFTA-award winning English actor. ... Kelly Macdonald (born February 23, 1976) is a Scottish actress, born in Glasgow, Scotland. ...

Another Curtis script, the film Mr. Bean's Holiday, is currently in production and will be released in March 2007. Mr. ...

Campaigning

Curtis was a founder of both Comic Relief and Make Poverty History. He organised the Live 8 concerts with Bob Geldof to publicize poverty, particularly in Africa, and pressure G8 leaders to adopt his proposals for ending it. To date Comic Relief has raised £337 million.^{[citation needed]} Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character or scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. ... // The Make Poverty History campaign (which is written as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) was a British and Irish coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who mobilized around the UKs prominence in world politics in 2005 to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute... Official Live 8 DVD, released in November 2005 Live 8 (not to be confused with Live Aid) was a series of concurrent benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. ... Robert Frederick Zenon Bob Geldof, KBE (born 5 October 1951) is an Irish singer, songwriter, actor and political activist. ...

Trivia

In much of Curtis's writing, there appears a character named Bernard. Examples include the eponymous hero in Bernard and the Genie (1991), Nursy in Blackadder the Second, the second groom in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and a minor character in Bridget Jones's Diary. A "Bernie" appears in Notting Hill and Love Actually. Some press reports have stated that this tradition stems from Curtis' time at college, when his then-girlfriend left him for Bernard Jenkin (later a British MP). Bernard and the Genie was a seventy-minute British TV movie co-produced by Attaboy and Talkback for BBC Television. ... Blackadder is the generic name that encompasses four series of an acclaimed BBC One historical sitcom, along with several one-off installments. ... Bridget Joness Diary is a 2001 film, based on the successful novel, also called Bridget Joness Diary, by Helen Fielding. ... Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film set in the Notting Hill district of London, England, UK. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis who had previously written Four Weddings and a Funeral. ... Love Actually is a romantic comedy first released in cinemas in October and November 2003. ... The Honourable Bernard Christison Jenkin (born 9 April 1959) is a politician in the United Kingdom. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ...

This theory was confirmed by the woman in question, Ann Jenkin, in the Colchester Evening Gazette in November 2003. She described it as 'just a private joke really'. Bernard Jenkin even added of the character Bernard's wife in Four Weddings, "I often wonder if sex mad Lydia is modelled on my wife Anne!" The Bernards are generally mild, mocking caricatures or, in the case of Nursy, female. In Love Actually Bernard was the name of Emma Thompson's character's son.

Curtis dated Helen Fielding for a time, with whom he collaborated on Bridget Jones's Diary and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Helen Fielding (born February 19, 1958 in Morley, West Yorkshire) is a British author, best known as the author of the novel Bridget Joness Diary and its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason The Bridget Jones books had their origins in a column published in The Independent and... Bridget Joness Diary is a 2001 film, based on the successful novel, also called Bridget Joness Diary, by Helen Fielding. ... Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. ...

Contents

Early life

Early writing career

Film career

Campaigning

Trivia

See also

External links

Notes