Editor, Actor, and Cinematographer Celebrate Their Birthdays…Day 144 of Bond 365

Jim Clark at work

Jim Clark

Born this day in 1931

Editor for The World Is Not Enough

Englishman Jim Clark has done a bit of everything in front of and behind the camera. He’s been an actor, writer, editor, director, producer, and sound. He got his start at Ealing Studios. He worked as an Assistant Sound Editor for The Cruel Sea (1953) and the following year, was the Second Assistant Editor on The Love Lottery (1954), a position that he stayed in for much of his 50+ year career.

Clark received an Academy Award and a BAFTA for editing The Killing Fields (1984) and a BAFTA for The Mission (1986). And in 2005, Clark was honored with the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award. In 2011, he wrote his autobiography, Dream Repairman: Adventures in Film Editing.

Lonsdale as Sir Hugo Drax

Michael Lonsdale

Born this day in 1931

Hugo Drax in Moonraker

Parisian Michael Lonsdale has had a long and successful career as an actor. With a French mother and an English father, they moved from Paris to Guernsey then London and eventually Casablanca. After the war, he returned to Paris where he studied painting before taking an interest in acting. He started with stage acting and then in 1956, he moved to the big screen with It Happened in Aden in which he was cast as Sinclair.

Most of his acting credits are in French film and television, but he has done some English projects. For example, as Lebel in The Day of the Jackel (1973); as the Abbot in The Name of the Rose (1986) in which he starred opposite Bond alum Sean Connery; as Dupont D’Ivry in The Remains of the Day (1993); as Jean-Pierre in Ronin (1998) opposite Bond alums Sean Bean and Jonathan Pryce; and as Papa in Munich (2005) opposite yet another couple of Bond alums, Daniel Craig and Mathieu Amalric. In all, Lonsdale has over 230 acting credits! 

Bond Trivia: Because Lonsdale is bilingual, for the French version of Moonraker, he dubbed himself.

Deakins on set

Roger Deakins

Born this day in 1949

Camera Operator: “A” Camera for Skyfall

Director of Photography on Skyfall

Roger Deakins is an accomplished English cinematographer who has worked a who’s who of directors: Michael Apted, Roger Spottiswoode, David Mamet, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, M. Night Shyamalan, and Angelina Jolie. He has worked with the Coen brothers for the past 25 years, Sam Mendes for three films, and currently with Denis Villeneuve on the new Blade Runner project.

Deakins’ approach of utilizing limited lighting brings out the beauty of his scenes and actors in all of his films. His cinematic eye has led to several accolades over the years. Below are just a few examples:

No Country for Old Men (2007)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

True Grit (2010)

Skyfall (2012)

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