Leslie Halliwell

Robert James Leslie Halliwell[1] (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a
Leslie Halliwell
British film critic, encyclopaedist and television impresario who in 1965 compiled
The Filmgoer's Companion, the first one-volume encyclopaedia devoted to all Born Robert James Leslie
aspects of the cinema. He followed it a dozen years later with Halliwell's Film Halliwell
Guide, another monumental work of effort and devotion. In the era before the 23 February 1929
internet, Halliwell's books were regarded as the number one source for movie Bolton, Lancashire,
information, and his name became synonymous with film knowledge and research. England, United
Anthony Quinton wrote in the Times Literary Supplementin 1977: Kingdom
Died 21 January 1989
Immersed in the enjoyment of these fine books, one should look up (aged 59)
for a moment to admire the quite astonishing combination of Esher, Surrey,
industry and authority in one man which has brought them into England, United
existence.[2] Kingdom
Occupation Film critic,
In his capacity as chief buyer for the ITV network, Halliwell was further responsible encyclopaedist
for bringing to British television screens some of the most popular films and shows
of the 1970s and '80s, including The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk, The A-Team, The Winds of War,
Jaws, Star Wars and the James Bond movies.[3]

Halliwell's promotion of the cinema through his books and seasons of 'golden oldies' on Channel 4 won him awards from the London
Film Critics' Circle, the British Film Institute and a posthumous BAFTA.[4][5][6]

Contents
Early life
The Rex Cinema, Cambridge
Television career
Encyclopaedias
The Filmgoer's Companion
Halliwell's Film Guide
Halliwell's Television Companion
Retirement
Death
Halliwell's favourite films
Biography
Bibliography
References
External links

Early life
Born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1929, Halliwell was captivated by films from an early age. He grew up during the Golden Age of
Hollywood, the period when the big studios churned out movies and wide-eyed cinemagoers packed the dream palaces. Halliwell and
his mother Lily went almost nightly to the cinema, which offered them an escape from the grim reality of life in a soot-covered mill
town.[7]

In 1939, Halliwell won a scholarship to Bolton School and after national service he studied English Literature at St Catharine's
College, Cambridge. As a young man he was a cheerful, often ebullient individual who ran film societies, performed in amateur
theatre productions and inspired those around him with his seemingly boundless enthusiasm for the cinema.

The Rex Cinema, Cambridge

After graduating with a 2:1 honours degree, Halliwell worked briefly for Picturegoer
magazine in London before returning to Cambridge to manage the Rex Cinema from
1952 to 1956. Under his management it became extremely popular with the Cambridge
undergraduate community, showing classic and vintage films such as The Blue Angel,
Citizen Kane and Destry Rides Again. The Cambridge Evening News reported, 'students
[8]
felt their periods at Cambridge were incomplete without the weekly visit to the Rex.'

In 1955, after the British Censor had banned the Marlon Brando film The Wild One,
Halliwell arranged for Cambridge magistrates to assess the picture. They subsequently
granted him a special licence and the Rex became the only cinema in Britain to show the
film.[9]

Television career Halliwell profile/interview from

Halliwell joined the Rank Organisation in 1956 on a three-year trainee course, after January 1987 issue ofFilms and
Filming
which he became a film publicist for the company.[10] In 1958, he joined Southern
Television and was seconded to Granada Television a year later, where he remained for
the next thirty years, at their offices in London's Golden Square.[11][12] He married Ruth Porter in 1959 and they had one son.
[13]

Initially appointed Cecil Bernstein's assistant, Halliwell's reputation for vast cinema knowledge led to him gaining the role of Film
Adviser to Granada's show Cinema, which was the most popular arts programme on television during the 1960s.[14][15] He was given
responsibility for buying TV shows and in 1968 became the chief film buyer for the ITV network, a role he maintained throughout
the 1970s and most of the 1980s.[16]

Travelling to Hollywood twice a year to view the latest TV pilots and film offerings and to trade fairs in Cannes and Monte Carlo,
Halliwell became a major player in the television industry
.

In 1982, at the invitation of Jeremy Isaacs, he became buyer and scheduler of US films for Channel 4. In keeping with the channel's
intention to appeal to specialist audiences, Halliwell focused primarily on the 1930s and '40s. Over the next few years the channel
showed hundreds of vintage movies in seasons, with many titles introduced by film-makers such as Samuel Goldwyn Jnr, Frank
Launder and Sidney Gilliat. Cinema fans and critics alike greatly appreciated Halliwell's efforts, with Jeremy Isaacs saying he had
made an 'unsurpassed contribution' to the channel's success.[17] The British Film Institute gave Halliwell an award in 1985 'for the
[5] Author and film historianJeffrey Richards wrote:
selection and acquisition of films with a view to creative scheduling.'

For lovers of the golden age of the cinema like myself, Channel 4 became a source of unalloyed delight as time and
[18]
again one encountered films one had only ever read about and never expected to see.

In addition, Halliwell presented two television series celebrating the British wartime documentary movement: Home Front, for
Granada in 1982 and The British at War for Channel 4 two years later. Both featured classic Ministry of Informationproductions such
as Listen to Britain, Desert Victory and The True Glory.[19]
Encyclopaedias

The Filmgoer's Companion

Published in 1965, Halliwell's pioneering work sold ten thousand copies on its first run, including four thousand in the United States.
Over the next ten years the book gained a reputation as the number one source for film information. Many critics raved about his
work but others were less enthusiastic, detecting small slivers of subjectivity among the facts, as well as a bias towards older films.
Halliwell edited nine editions of theCompanion.[20]

Gene Siskel wrote in 1975:

There is a well-developed consensus among film scribes that Leslie Halliwell's The Filmgoer's Companion is the
single most valuable reference book on film."[21]

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1979, "The referrer needs an iron will to look up only one fact." and TV
presenter Denis Norden said "The Filmgoer's Companionis to films what Wisden is to cricket."[22][23]

Halliwell's Film Guide

First published in 1977, this book incorporated capsule information on some 8,000 English-speaking titles. By the time of Halliwell's
death in 1989, the Film Guide had doubled in size. He acknowledged his predecessors in the introduction to the first edition,

I salute especially the work of Leonard Maltin, James Robert Parish, Denis Gifford, Douglas Eames and the unsung
anonymous heroes who compiled the reviews of theBFI's Monthly Film Bulletinduring the fifties and sixties.[24]

In addition to receiving much praise for his work, Halliwell came under fire from journalists and critics for his laconic comments and
dismissive stance on more recent films. His devotion to theGolden Age of Hollywoodleft him increasingly out of touch with modern
attitudes. Long-time Observer film critic Philip French wrote that Halliwell 'isn't a scholar, critic or cineaste, but rather a movie buff,
a man who knows the credits of everything but the value of very little.'[25] Jim Emerson of the Chicago Tribune called Halliwell
[26]
'something of a grumpy old English fuddy-duddy ... he rarely has anything good to say about any movie made after 1960'.

Halliwell's Television Companion

Halliwell's third encyclopaedic work began life as the Teleguide in 1979. Disappointed with the first edition, Halliwell joined with
Sunday Telegraph critic Philip Purser to produce Halliwell's Television Companion, which ran for a further two editions in 1982 and
1985. The third edition, published by Grafton in 1986, included over 12,000 entries.

Retirement
Halliwell retired from the television industry in 1986 but continued to edit his film guides.[27] He wrote a regular TV article for the
Daily Mail in 1987 and published a number of historical and critical works about the cinema; he also published three volumes of
ghost stories inspired byM. R. James.[28][29]

Death
Halliwell died of esophageal cancer at the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher, Surrey, a month before his 60th birthday.[30]

Halliwell's favourite films

 Film Guide.[31]
This list of Leslie Halliwell's favourite films was originally published in the fifth edition of the

Citizen Kane (1941)

Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Le Million (1931)
A Matter of Life and Death(1946)
Lost Horizon (1937)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
The Philadelphia Story(1940)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Biography
A biography, Halliwell's Horizon, written by Michael Binder, was published in 2011.[32]

Bibliography
1965. – The Filmgoer's Companion. – ISBN 0-00-255798-3 (editions 1–9 edited by Halliwell himself)
1973. – The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes. – ISBN 0-583-12889-0
1975. – The Clapperboard Book of the Cinema. – with Graham Murray, ISBN 0-246-10814-2
1976. – Mountain of Dreams: the Golden Years of Paramount. – ISBN 0-246-10825-8
1977. – Halliwell's Movie Quiz. – ISBN 0-905018-42-7
1977. – Halliwell's Film Guide. – ISBN 0-00-714412-1 (editions 1–7 edited by Halliwell himself)
1979. – Halliwell's Television Companion. – ISBN 0-586-08379-0
1982. – Halliwell's Hundred. – ISBN 0-246-11330-8
1984. – The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes: Seventeen Supernatural Stories . – ISBN 0-586-05995-4
1985. – Seats in All Parts: Half a Lifetime at the Movies
. – ISBN 0-246-12478-4
1986. – Halliwell's Harvest. – ISBN 0-684-18518-0
1986. – The Dead that Walk. – ISBN 0-8044-2300-8
1987. – A Demon Close Behind. – ISBN 0-7090-2932-2
1987. – Double Take and Fade Away. – ISBN 0-246-12835-6
1987. – Return to Shangri-La. – ISBN 0-586-07081-8
1988. – A Demon on the Stair. – ISBN 0-7090-3181-5

References
1. Halliwell's birth certificate: Apr/May/Jun 1929, Bolton, V
ol 8c, Page 480
2. See the following book reviews: Anthony Quinton inThe Times Literary Supplement, 25 November 1977; Charles
Champlin in The Los Angeles Times, 4 May 1979; Benny Green inThe Spectator, 11/1977; John Russell Taylor in
The Times Educational Supplement, 2 June 1978; David Bartholomew inLibrary Journal Book Review, 1979;
Variety, 23 December 1987.quoted inHalliwell's Horizon, Michael Binder, p.195 (https://books.google.co.nz/books?id
=TsU-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195#v=onepage&q&f=false)
3. See The Sunday Times Magazine, 1 October 1978 and Broadcast magazine, 8 March 1976;Sunday Times, 13
February 1983; Broadcast, 21 February 1983; Broadcast, 2 February 1981 andThe Observer, 13 March 1988; Daily
Express, 23 October 1982; The Observer, 22 March 1987 and The Listener, 5 February 1987.
4. The Guardian, 6 December 1988 and 30 May 1997.
5. Broadcast magazine, 28 June 1985.
6. Bolton Evening News, 26 March 1990.
7. See Halliwell's memoir, Seats in all Parts.
8. Cambridge Evening News, 31 January 1983.
9. Sight & Sound, summer 1955; Daily Express, 22 March 1955; Cambridge Daily News, 12 April 1955.
10. Daily Mail, 24 May 1987.
11. The Boltonian (Bolton School's magazine), July 1957.
12. The Boltonian, March 1959.
13. Marriage certificate: Jul/Aug/Sep 1959, V
ol 5g, Page 984, Surrey N.
14. Daily Mail, 11 July 1987.
15. See TV Times, July 1964 for the launch of the show. See Television Mail, 4 December 1964 and any subsequent
edition for the viewing figures.
16. See The Observer, 22 March 1987 and Films & Filming, January 1987
17. Book Storm Over 4: A Personal Accountby Jeremy Isaacs. Halliwell had regular columns in theTV Times and See 4
magazines in 1984/85, in which he publicised upcoming films and responded to reader questions and requests.
18. Daily Telegraph, 23 January 1989.
19. Video tapes of Home Front survive at the British Film Institute Library
. The British at War is advertised in The Times
TV Section, 25 October 1984.
20. Sunday Times, 30 July 1989.
21. Chicago Tribune, 18 May 1975.
22. Los Angeles Times, 4 May 1979.
23. Looks Familiar, Thames Television, 2 January 1974.
24. Halliwell's Film Guide, 1st edition – ISBN 0-246-10982-3.
25. The Spectator, 24 February 1978.
26. Chicago Tribune, 2 March 1990.
27. Screen International, 15 June 1986.
28. 'Halliwell's Screen Choice' in the Saturday edition of theDaily Mail, 14 March 1987-10/10/1987.
29. See bibliography.
30. Death certificate: Jan/Feb/Mar 1989, Vol 17, Page 295, Reg no. 189, Surrey Northern.
31. Top Tens (http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/topten.html). – LeslieHalliwell.com
32. Halliwell's Horizon (http://www.lesliehalliwell.com/)

External links
Website celebrating Halliwell and hisFilm Guide
Leslie Halliwell on IMDb

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