John Madden

An accomplished director for British television, John Madden successfully expanded into feature films with the massively popular "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), which earned him an Oscar. He began his career in radio and on stage in America before returning to his native England to direct for such acclaimed series as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (ITV, 1984-1994) and "Prime Suspect (ITV, 1991-2006). His film career began slowly with 1993's "Ethan Frome," which failed to find an audience, but established him as a skilled translator of books to screen; "Shakespeare" proved his biggest hit to date, and the hurdle which his subsequent efforts, including "Proof" (2005) and "Killshot" (2009) failed to overcome. However, the sheer quality of his complete body of work served as a reminder that with the right project, he could again assume the heights he hit after "Shakespeare."

Born April 8, 1949 in the coastal town of Portsmouth in Hampshire, England, John Madden began his education at Clifton College, an independent school in Bristol. One of his classmates was his friend and fellow filmmaker Roger Michell of "Notting Hill" (1999) fame, whom he later replaced as director of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001) after Michell suffered a heart attack prior to the launch of production. After graduation from the University of Cambridge in 1970, he traveled to the United States to develop radio dramas for Earplay, a National Public Radio project. The anthology series featured adaptations of established material, including all three "Star Wars" films, as well as original works by such leading playwrights as Edward Albee, David Mamet and Arthur Kopit, whose 1976 play, "Wings," won the Prix Italia, the leading world radio broadcasting award, for Madden. He eventually directed the drama for stage at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT in 1976 before its transfer to Broadway and London. A string of successful stints as stage director soon followed, including Jules Feiffer's "Grown Ups" and Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy." During this fruitful period, Madden was also teaching in the acting and playwriting programs at Yale University.

In 1982, he returned to England to direct for television, where he specialized in adaptations of theatrical works and historical dramas. Among his more notable productions during the period were several episodes of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (ITV, 1984-1994), with Jeremy Brett as the Baker Street sleuth, and "Prime Suspect 4: The Lost Child" (ITV, 1995), which earned star Helen Mirren a much deserved Emmy Award. His 1996 TV drama, "Truth or Dare" (BBC), about a young lawyer drawn into sadistic head games by a trio of college friends, won a BAFTA Scotland Award.

Madden's feature film debut came with 1993's "Ethan Frome," an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel about a young woman (Patricia Arquette) who drives a wedge between a husband (Liam Neeson) and his sickly wife (Joan Allen). Though not a box office success, it proved Madden's talents could translate to the big screen. It was quickly followed by "Golden Gate" (1994), with Matt Dillon as a '50s-era federal agent who becomes involved with a Chinese-American woman (Joan Chen) whose father he helped to incarcerate for being a Communist. Penned by playwright David Henry Hwang and produced by the esteemed public television series "American Playhouse" (PBS, 1982-1993), the film also received critical praise, but few viewers.

After "Golden Gate," Madden returned to English television for the next few years, helming such critical and ratings hits as "Prime Suspect: The Lost Child" and episodes of "Inspector Morse" (ITV, 1987-2000). In 1997, he scored his first feature hit with "Mrs. Brown," a moving period drama about the relationship between Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and her servant, the Scotsman John Brown (Billy Connolly). Produced by the BBC and originally intended for broadcast on BBC One, it was acquired by Miramax, which turned the film into a surprise global hit, with Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins for Dench.

The following year, Madden hit his stride with "Shakespeare in Love," an imaginative comedy-drama about the young Bard and his muse (Gwyneth Paltrow), a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to act on the Elizabethan stage. Madden was not the original director of the film; writer-director Edward Zwick was initially attached, with Julia Roberts in line to play Paltrow's part. However, Roberts' inability to bring Daniel Day-Lewis aboard to play Shakespeare caused her to abandon the project. Soon after, Zwick brought the film to Miramax, who dropped Zwick in favor of Madden. The film went on to be one of the biggest hits of the summer of 1998, buoyed by the ebullient performances of Paltrow, Judi Dench (as Queen Elizabeth) and Geoffrey Rush as theater manager Philip Henslowe; all three were nominated for Academy Awards, as was Madden, writers Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, and numerous others, with Paltrow and Dench winning the Oscars.

Madden's next project was the ill-fated "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001), which was adapted from the well-loved novel by Louis de Bernieres. Unfortunately, the film, about the love affair between a gentle Italian Army captain (Nicolas Cage) and a beautiful Greek woman (Penelope Cruz) during the occupation of Greece during World War II, deviated heavily from the darker, more somber source material, which disappointed many of the book's fervent fans. After opening seventh in its debut, "Corelli" sank without a trace.

The same fate befell Madden's subsequent projects. "Proof" (2005), based on David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, benefitted from an exceptional cast led by Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow, but the film, about the daughter (Paltrow) of a famed mathematician (Hopkins) who fights to prove that a historically significant theorem is her work and not that of her father, went largely unseen during its release. And "Killshot" (2008), based on the crime novel by Elmore Leonard, began production in 1997 with Madden attached as director, but cameras did not begin rolling until 2005. The film starred Mickey Rourke as a hitman pursuing a suburban couple (Diane Lane and Thomas Jane) who have seen him at work; unfortunately, the project tested poorly, and underwent some three years of revisions until it limped onto DVD in 2009.

In 2010, Madden returned to features with "The Debt," a remake of a 2007 Israeli film about a Mossad agent (Helen Mirren) who resumes the hunt for a Nazi war criminal she began pursuing some four decades prior. Contributing to the script was Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, while Sam Worthington and Ciaran Hinds were among the cast.