Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott Wiki

Birth Place: South Shields, County Durham (now South Shields, Tyne & Wear), England, UK
Birth Date: November 30, 1937
Occupation: Producer, Director, Production Designer

Ridley Scott Biography

Ridley Scott was born in South Shields, Tyne and Wear (then Northumberland) on 30 November 1937. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the UK and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside.Scott wanted to join Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.He joined BBC in 1962 as trainee set designer working on several high profile shows. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was an episode of the prestigious BBC series "Z Cars" (1962), "Z Cars: Error of Judgement (#4.40)" (1965).More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavour, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career.The success of Star Wars (1977) inspired Scott's return to sci-fi (he had been a production designer on the cult series "Doctor Who" (1963) while he was at the BBC) and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget sci-fi horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made.Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on 22 January 1984.Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.Sir Ridley was knighted in 2003 for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry".

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