Tony Palmer (7)

Tony Palmer (born 29 August 1941, London, England) is a world renowned British film and opera director, filmographer and music critic. He created over 100 films – from early works for The Beatles, Cream (2), Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa () to famous documentaries about Walton, Benjamin Britten, Stravinsky, Maria Callas, André Previn, Leonard Cohen (3357341), Margot Fonteyn, Menuhin, etc. Other famous works of his includes All You Need Is Love, a 17-part series on American popular music, and epic 7 hour long film on Wagner, starring Richard Burton (2), Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave. His alma mater is Cambridge University, where he also acted as a president of the Marlowe Society. Tony Palmer won over 45 international prizes for his work, including 13 gold medals at the New York Film & Television Festival, awards from the Jerusalem, San Francisco, São Paulo, Sofia, Cuenca and London Film Festivals, as well as numerous BAFTA, Emmy, Grierson nominations and awards. For instance, Palmer got world’s most desired TV award Prix d'Italia three times. Tony Palmer was a regular music critic for The Observer for seven years (1967-74), he had a weekly 'Notes from the Underground' column in The Spectator (1969-74) and has written for such magazines and newspapers, as Times, The New York Times, Punch and Life. He wrote liner credits for a couple of The Beatles album and also published seven books, incl. biographies of King Charles II, guitarist Julian Bream and violinist Menuhin. Tony Palmer has also directed in the theatre and opera house in Zurich, Karlsruhe, St. Petersburg, Hamburg, Munich, Augsburg, Savonlinna, Berlin and Helsinki and became the first Western director ever to work at the Bolshoi in Moscow. In addition, Palmer has won various platinum and gold albums for the best-selling CDs of the soundtracks of his films.