Biography
Annakin grew up in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire where he attended the grammar school. He began his career in feature films following an early experience making documentaries. His first filmwork was in 1947 with the Rank Organisation. The following year he moved to Gainsborough Pictures to direct three films about the Huggetts, a working class family living in suburban England these highly successful films starring Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Petula Clark and Diana Dors (amongst others) are seen as the genesis of the British soap opera. Annakin became known for a series of Walt Disney adventures, including The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953), Third Man on the Mountain (1959), and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
He was later associated with another American producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, when he was hired to direct the British segments in The Longest Day (1962). As head of the 20th Century-Fox Studio, Zanuck endorsed Annakin's most ambitious project Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). Annakin also directed the big-scale war film Battle of the Bulge (also 1965) for the Warner Brothers studio.
However, some of Annakin's better received films are smaller-scale comedies and dramas, including his episodes in Quartet (1948) and Trio (1950), based on Somerset Maugham's stories, Hotel Sahara (1951), Across the Bridge (1957), Crooks Anonymous (1962), The Fast Lady (1963) and The Informers (1963).
Annakin's last completed film was The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988), Genghis Khan (1992) was not completed. He died on 22 April 2009, the same day as Jack Cardiff, who had been his cinematographer on the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer.
Despite claims that George Lucas took the name for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars from his friend and fellow film director, Lucas denied this via his publicist following Annakin's death in 2009.
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