Gavin Millar (11 January 1938 – 20 April 2022) was a Scottish film director, critic and television presenter.

Gavin Millar
Born(1938-01-11)11 January 1938
Clydebank, Scotland
Died20 April 2022(2022-04-20) (aged 84)
Occupations
  • Critic
  • film director
  • television presenter

Biography

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Millar was born in Clydebank, near Glasgow, the son of Tom Millar and his wife Rita (née Osborne). The family relocated to the Midlands when he was nine and he was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham. He undertook national service in the Royal Air Force and then read English at Christ Church, Oxford from 1958 to 1961. Millar took a postgraduate film course at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.[1]

Career

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Millar was a film critic for The Listener from 1970 to 1984.[2] He also contributed to Sight and Sound and the London Review of Books. He wrote a new section to Karel Reisz's book The Technique of Film Editing for the 1968 edition.[1][3] On television, he wrote, produced and presented Arena Cinema for the BBC from 1976 to 1980, and wrote and presented numerous other cinema and visual arts documentaries.[4]

In 1980, he directed Dennis Potter's Cream in My Coffee for London Weekend Television, which received a BAFTA nomination.[5] His first feature film as director was 1985's Dreamchild.[6] He would later collaborate with Dreamchild's producer Rick McCallum again on the episode Peking, March 1910, part of George Lucas's television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1993. It was later re-edited to be part of Journey of Radiance when the series became The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones on its DVD release.[7] His 1994 television film Pat and Margaret, featuring Victoria Wood, received a further BAFTA nomination, and Housewife, 49 (2006), a later collaboration with Wood, won the 2007 award.[8]

Marriage and children

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Millar married Sylvia Lane in 1966. She died in 2012. The couple had five children.[1]

Death

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Millar died of a brain tumour on 20 April 2022, aged 84. He was survived by his five children and by six grandchildren.[1]

Selected works

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Feature films

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Gilbey, Ryan (28 April 2022). "Gavin Millar obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
  2. ^ SHOVLIN, FRANK (31 August 2021). The Letters of John McGahern. Faber & Faber. ISBN 9780571326679 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ "Revisiting Some Classic Texts of Film Editing". 15 May 2012.
  4. ^ "Gavin Millar". BFI. Archived from the original on 27 February 2018.
  5. ^ "BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
  6. ^ "Dreamchild". Time Out Worldwide. 10 September 2012.
  7. ^ "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Journey of Radiance - Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  8. ^ "Film makers on film Gavin Millar". Telegraph. 21 June 2004. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
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