Terence Young

Terence Young was born on Jun 20, 1915 in China. Terence Young's big-screen debut came with The Fugitive directed by Brian Desmond Hurst in 1939. Terence Young is known for Birds, Orphans and Fools directed by Juraj Jakubisko, Philippe Avron stars as Andrej and Jirí Sýkora as Yorick. Terence Young has got 1 awards and 1 nominations so far. The most recent award Terence Young achieved is Razzie Awards. The upcoming new movie Terence Young plays is Run for Your Life which will be released on Oct 01, 1988.

Born in Shanghai and Cambridge-educated, Terence Young began in the industry as a scriptwriter. In the 1940s he worked on a variety of subjects, including the hugely popular wartime romance Le concerto de Varsovie (1941), set to Richard Addinsell's rousing "Warsaw Concerto". His original story was devised while listening to a concert in an army training camp. As it turned out, Young was soon after involved in the war himself, as a member of the Guards.By the end of the decade Young had graduated to directing. He made his debut with the psychological melodrama Corridor of Mirrors (1948), starring Eric Portman as a reclusive art collector obsessed with reincarnation and murder. During the following decade Young helmed a number of international co-productions, which featured imported stars from Hollywood (Alan Ladd in Les bérets rouges (1953); Olivia de Havilland in La princesse d'Eboli (1955); Victor Mature in Safari (1956), Zarak le valeureux (1956) and La brigade des bérets noirs (1958)). These films were made by Warwick, an independent production company created jointly by Irwin Allen and future James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, and released through Columbia. Production values were often quite high, though scripts were of variable quality. "Safari", for instance, looked great, shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope on location in Africa, which partly compensated for the trite storyline.Having acquired the rights to all available James Bond novels from Ian Fleming, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli secured the necessary funding ($1,250,000) from United Artists and hired Young to direct the initial Bond entry, James Bond 007 contre Dr. No (1962). That film's success got him re-hired to direct two subsequent Bond films, Bons baisers de Russie (1963) (Young's own personal favorite) and Opération Tonnerre (1965). Young had acquired a solid reputation as a master of action subjects, and all three films move at a cracking pace. Exotic locales provide the background for a seamless mix of technical wizardry, sex, violence and tongue-in-cheek (sometimes campy) dialogue. Unfortunately, these films also marked the high point of Young's career, though he did direct another eerily effective psychological thriller, Seule dans la nuit (1967), much in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock.Among a brace of forgettable European co-productions, only two other films stand out: the bawdy, highly entertaining all-star period comedy Les aventures amoureuses de Moll Flanders (1965) and an intriguing expose of the inner workings--and dark beginnings--of the Cosa Nostra (based on an actual informant's testimony), entitled Cosa Nostra - L'Affaire Valachi (1972). After that, Young's output became more patchy and his later career suffered as a result of two disastrous projects: first, the Korean War epic Inchon (1981), with Laurence Olivier badly miscast as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The enterprise was reputedly financed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's organization--aka the "Moonies"--to the tune of $40 million. Film critic Vincent Canby in the New York Times (September 17, 1982) referred to the picture as "hysterical" and "foolish", "the most expensive B-movie ever made". The second flop, a financially troubled production, was the predictably plotted spy thriller La taupe (1983). Completed in 1982, the film was held back and not released until two years later. Young directed just one more film after that and left the industry in 1988. However, according to his daughter, he was working on a documentary in Cannes at the time of his death in September 1994. Though he went on record in 1966, asserting that he had grown rather tired of the Bond franchise, it is, nonetheless, that for which we will ultimately remember him.