Colin Welland

Welland scripted John Schlesinger's "Yanks" (1979) and has since worked consistently as a screenwriter and occasionally as an actor. He appeared in Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (1971) and won a Best Screenplay Oscar for "Chariots of Fire" (1981), the story of the British 1924 Olympics runners which also won the Academy Award as Best Picture.

The Lancashire native, born Colin Williams, began his professional career as an art teacher. By 1964, he …