Hugh Hudson, director of ‘Chariots of Fire,’ dies at 86

Hugh Hudson, the director of the influential 1981 movie and 1982 Oscar finest image winner “Chariots of Hearth,” died Friday at age 86.

“Hugh Hudson, 86, beloved husband and father, died at Charing Cross hospital on 10 February after a brief sickness,” the director’s household mentioned in an announcement shared with the Guardian.

Actor Nigel Havers, who starred in “Chariots of Hearth,” instructed the Guardian he was “past devastated that my nice buddy Hugh Hudson, who I’ve identified for greater than 45 years, has died.”

“‘Chariots of Hearth’ was one of many biggest experiences of my skilled life, and, like so many others, I owe a lot of what adopted to him,” Havers mentioned. “I shall miss him drastically.”

The 1981 drama was primarily based on the real-life rivalry between two sprinters, Eric Liddell, a religious Scottish Christian, and the English Harold Abrahams, who was Jewish, within the lead as much as the 1924 Olympics.

The movie noticed business and important success in each the US and Britain and nabbed 4 Oscars, together with finest image and an award for its memorable rating.

Within the U.Okay., “Chariots” was additionally seen as provocative, with the British Film Institute calling it “one of many decade’s most controversial British movies, regarded by its left-leaning makers ([David] Puttnam, Hudson and the author Colin Welland) as a radical indictment of Institution snobbery and privilege, however appropriated by others as a conservative paean to Thatcherite values of individualism and enterprise.”

Hudson adopted up his success with “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes,” which additionally garnered Oscar nominations, and in 1985 “Revolution,” a historic drama starring Al Pacino and Donald Sutherland concerning the American Revolutionary Warfare. Nonetheless, the latter drama bombed on the field workplace and with critics, incomes Hudson a Golden Raspberry award for guiding.

Upon the rerelease of “Chariots of Hearth” in 2012, simply earlier than the Summer time Olympics in London, Hudson mentioned he hoped more diverse audiences would establish with the movie’s themes and its character Abrahams, who within the movie is “combating for himself, his rights, who he’s.”

Hudson is survived by his spouse, Maryam, his son, Thomas, and his ex-wife, Sue.