Recent from talks
John Heyman
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
John Heyman
John Heyman (27 April 1933 – 9 June 2017) was a British film and TV producer also involved in television production, consulting, and film financing.
Heyman was born in Leipzig to German-Jewish parents. His father, an economist and broadcaster who opposed Hitler, fled Germany on 30 January 1933. The seven-month-old John and his mother joined him that November in London, where his father had secured work as a journalist on the now defunct News Chronicle. During World War II, his father worked for the Ministry of Information and was naturalised British in the national interest. After the war he was the financial correspondent for The Economist, The Times, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He died at his typewriter putting the final 'full stop' on a leader column for the Times, which was published two days after his death. John's mother, an avid suffragette, was both a teacher of Russian studies and a permanent student, collecting her seventh degree (in Economics) from the London School of Economics at the age of 70.
Heyman was educated at Norfolk House in London, Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire, and finally at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford.
After two years of National Service in the Army, Heyman returned to Oxford to read law. During a summer vacation, he obtained free tickets to a Radio Luxembourg show. Having been chosen as a contestant he won £93, more money than he thought existed in the world, and he returned to Oxford as the question writer for the show Double Your Money, which would run in the top ten for thirteen years on the new Independent Television Network in England. He also sold a number of other television concepts. In 1955 Heyman started full-time work in the entertainment industry and by the age of 22 was head of public relations at Associated Television, one of the two founder companies of the ITV. By then he was working on five of the network's television programmes, three of which were rated among ITV's top ten.
In 1959 Heyman formed The International Artists Agency, which represented, among others, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, Trevor Howard, Shirley Bassey, and Burt Bacharach.
In 1961 the agency formed the subsidiary World Film Sales, the first company to pre-sell and license pictures on a territory-by-territory basis. World Film Sales was sold to ITC in 1973. It was the first of a series of companies which would become the World Group of Companies Limited. For over 40 years, the company and its executives have been producers, packagers, co-financiers, investors, or distributors of films that have garnered numerous awards, including more than 150 Academy Award nominations and more than two dozen Oscars.
In 1963, Heyman started to work as a film producer and had over his lifetime produced some 15 films, among them The Go-Between and The Hireling, which both won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. He co-financed a further 150 films. In 1964 he also co-produced the longest running Hamlet in Broadway history, starring Richard Burton and directed by John Gielgud. In 1965 Heyman produced Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, starring Hermione Gingold in London's West End.
In 1973, he founded The Genesis Project to create an audio-visual encyclopaedia, atlas, and dictionary. It commenced translating the Bible onto film accompanied by a variety of educational materials. After completing the filming of Genesis and the Gospel of Luke (which, under the title Jesus, became the most viewed film in history), The New Media Bible was sold to an evangelical organisation, having failed commercially in the age before VHS or DVD.
Hub AI
John Heyman AI simulator
(@John Heyman_simulator)
John Heyman
John Heyman (27 April 1933 – 9 June 2017) was a British film and TV producer also involved in television production, consulting, and film financing.
Heyman was born in Leipzig to German-Jewish parents. His father, an economist and broadcaster who opposed Hitler, fled Germany on 30 January 1933. The seven-month-old John and his mother joined him that November in London, where his father had secured work as a journalist on the now defunct News Chronicle. During World War II, his father worked for the Ministry of Information and was naturalised British in the national interest. After the war he was the financial correspondent for The Economist, The Times, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He died at his typewriter putting the final 'full stop' on a leader column for the Times, which was published two days after his death. John's mother, an avid suffragette, was both a teacher of Russian studies and a permanent student, collecting her seventh degree (in Economics) from the London School of Economics at the age of 70.
Heyman was educated at Norfolk House in London, Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire, and finally at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford.
After two years of National Service in the Army, Heyman returned to Oxford to read law. During a summer vacation, he obtained free tickets to a Radio Luxembourg show. Having been chosen as a contestant he won £93, more money than he thought existed in the world, and he returned to Oxford as the question writer for the show Double Your Money, which would run in the top ten for thirteen years on the new Independent Television Network in England. He also sold a number of other television concepts. In 1955 Heyman started full-time work in the entertainment industry and by the age of 22 was head of public relations at Associated Television, one of the two founder companies of the ITV. By then he was working on five of the network's television programmes, three of which were rated among ITV's top ten.
In 1959 Heyman formed The International Artists Agency, which represented, among others, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, Trevor Howard, Shirley Bassey, and Burt Bacharach.
In 1961 the agency formed the subsidiary World Film Sales, the first company to pre-sell and license pictures on a territory-by-territory basis. World Film Sales was sold to ITC in 1973. It was the first of a series of companies which would become the World Group of Companies Limited. For over 40 years, the company and its executives have been producers, packagers, co-financiers, investors, or distributors of films that have garnered numerous awards, including more than 150 Academy Award nominations and more than two dozen Oscars.
In 1963, Heyman started to work as a film producer and had over his lifetime produced some 15 films, among them The Go-Between and The Hireling, which both won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. He co-financed a further 150 films. In 1964 he also co-produced the longest running Hamlet in Broadway history, starring Richard Burton and directed by John Gielgud. In 1965 Heyman produced Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, starring Hermione Gingold in London's West End.
In 1973, he founded The Genesis Project to create an audio-visual encyclopaedia, atlas, and dictionary. It commenced translating the Bible onto film accompanied by a variety of educational materials. After completing the filming of Genesis and the Gospel of Luke (which, under the title Jesus, became the most viewed film in history), The New Media Bible was sold to an evangelical organisation, having failed commercially in the age before VHS or DVD.