London: Filmmaker Roger Michell, known for directing films such as Notting Hill, Venus and My Cousin Rachel, passed away on Wednesday. He was 65.
Michell was a British theatre, television and film director. He was best known for directing films such as Notting Hill and Venus, as well as the 1995 made-for-television film Persuasion.
Michell was born on 5 June 1956 in Pretoria, South Africa. Michell was not South African, as is sometimes mistakenly assumed, but was simply born there; his father was a British diplomat who was posted there at the time. Due to his father’s job, he spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus, and Prague; he lived in Prague during the 1968 invasion. He was educated at Clifton College in Bristol, where he began directing and writing short plays, before reading English at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he directed and acted in dozens of plays, winning both the RSC Buzz Goodbody Award for Best Student Director at the NSDF, and a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for his play Private Dick. He graduated in 1977.