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Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert (23 July 1924 – 17 July 2005) was an English screenwriter, film critic, novelist and biographer. Described as "an incisive observer of life in Hollywood," his writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry, particularly from a queer lens. Early in his career, he was an editor for the influential journals Sequence and Sight and Sound, and a critic for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
Lambert's screenwriting work earned him two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Sons and Lovers (1960) and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977).
Gavin's father's half-sister was Ivy Claudine Godber aka Claudine West (1890-1943), a screenwriter who won an Oscar for her joint writing of the script of Mrs. Miniver in 1942.
Lambert was educated at Cheltenham College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his professors was C. S. Lewis. At Oxford, he befriended Penelope Houston and filmmakers Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson, and they founded a short-lived but influential journal, Sequence, which was originally edited by Houston. The magazine, which lasted for only 15 issues, moved to London after the fifth issue, and Lambert and Anderson took over as co-editors. Lambert eventually left Oxford without obtaining a degree.
From 1949 to 1956 he edited the journal Sight and Sound, again with Anderson as a regular contributor. At about the same time Lambert was deeply involved in Britain's Free Cinema movement which called for more social realism in contemporary movies. He also wrote film criticism for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
In late 1955, he moved to Hollywood, California, to work as a personal assistant to director Nicholas Ray and worked on the script (uncredited) for Ray's Bigger Than Life (1956). Later, he co-wrote the screenplay for Ray's film Bitter Victory (1957). According to the critic David Robinson, Lambert was Ray's lover for a time.
Lambert became a notable screenwriter of the Hollywood studio era. In 1954, while still living in England, he wrote his first screenplay, Another Sky, about the sexual awakening of a prim English woman in North Africa. In 1955, he also directed Another Sky in Morocco. This was followed in 1958 by the Hollywood screenplay, Bitter Victory and in 1960 by Sons and Lovers. The latter, for which Lambert gained an Academy Award nomination, is based on a novel by D. H. Lawrence. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) adapted a novella by Tennessee Williams on the affairs of an older actress with a young Italian gigolo.
As, from the 1920s through the late 1960s, homosexuality was rarely portrayed on the screen, gay screenwriters like Lambert learned to express their personal sensibilities discreetly between the lines of a film. "The important thing to remember about 'gay influence' in movies," observed Gavin Lambert, "is that it was obviously never direct. It was all subliminal. It couldn't be direct because the mass audience would say, Hey, no way."
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Gavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert (23 July 1924 – 17 July 2005) was an English screenwriter, film critic, novelist and biographer. Described as "an incisive observer of life in Hollywood," his writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry, particularly from a queer lens. Early in his career, he was an editor for the influential journals Sequence and Sight and Sound, and a critic for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
Lambert's screenwriting work earned him two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Sons and Lovers (1960) and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977).
Gavin's father's half-sister was Ivy Claudine Godber aka Claudine West (1890-1943), a screenwriter who won an Oscar for her joint writing of the script of Mrs. Miniver in 1942.
Lambert was educated at Cheltenham College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his professors was C. S. Lewis. At Oxford, he befriended Penelope Houston and filmmakers Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson, and they founded a short-lived but influential journal, Sequence, which was originally edited by Houston. The magazine, which lasted for only 15 issues, moved to London after the fifth issue, and Lambert and Anderson took over as co-editors. Lambert eventually left Oxford without obtaining a degree.
From 1949 to 1956 he edited the journal Sight and Sound, again with Anderson as a regular contributor. At about the same time Lambert was deeply involved in Britain's Free Cinema movement which called for more social realism in contemporary movies. He also wrote film criticism for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
In late 1955, he moved to Hollywood, California, to work as a personal assistant to director Nicholas Ray and worked on the script (uncredited) for Ray's Bigger Than Life (1956). Later, he co-wrote the screenplay for Ray's film Bitter Victory (1957). According to the critic David Robinson, Lambert was Ray's lover for a time.
Lambert became a notable screenwriter of the Hollywood studio era. In 1954, while still living in England, he wrote his first screenplay, Another Sky, about the sexual awakening of a prim English woman in North Africa. In 1955, he also directed Another Sky in Morocco. This was followed in 1958 by the Hollywood screenplay, Bitter Victory and in 1960 by Sons and Lovers. The latter, for which Lambert gained an Academy Award nomination, is based on a novel by D. H. Lawrence. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) adapted a novella by Tennessee Williams on the affairs of an older actress with a young Italian gigolo.
As, from the 1920s through the late 1960s, homosexuality was rarely portrayed on the screen, gay screenwriters like Lambert learned to express their personal sensibilities discreetly between the lines of a film. "The important thing to remember about 'gay influence' in movies," observed Gavin Lambert, "is that it was obviously never direct. It was all subliminal. It couldn't be direct because the mass audience would say, Hey, no way."