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Michael Apted (born 10 February 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) is an English director, producer, writer and actor. He is one of the most prolific British film directors of his generation but is best known for his work on the Up! series of documentaries. He is also the president of the Directors Guild of America.
Apted came from a lower middle class family - his father worked for an insurance company - but he secured a scholarship to attend City of London School and then to study law and history at Cambridge University (Downing). He began his career in television, securing a traineeship at Granada Television and where began work as a researcher. One of his first projects at Granada would became his most famous: the Up! series, which began in 1964 as a profile of fourteen seven-year-old children. As researcher, Apted was involved in selecting the children. Though it began as a one-shot documentary, the series has become an institution, revisiting the subjects every seven years, with Apted directing the later episodes in the series. The series follows Apted's thesis that the British class system remains largely in place and is premised on the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." Now in its seventh installment, the series is a dramatic look the lives of ordinary (and not so ordinary) peoples' lives. The latest version, 49 Up, was produced in 2005 and Apted has said that he hopes to be able to make 56 Up, at which time he will be seventy-two.
During his time at Granada, Apted also directed a number of episodes of Coronation Street, then written by Jack Rosenthal. Apted and Rosenthal went on to collaborate on a number of popular television and film projects including the pilot episodes for The Dustbinmen and The Lovers. Apted and Rosenthal teamed up again in 1984 for the TV movie P'tang Yang Kipperbang, one of the first films commissioned by Britain's Channel 4.
For his work in television, Apted has won several British Academy Awards, including one for Best Dramatic Director.
Apted made his first feature film in 1972, The Triple Echo, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, and he directed two films for David Putnam alternating between television work on Play for Today. Apted directed six plays including Stronger than the Sun, written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Francesca Annis as a young woman who places her life in danger to expose a crime, a theme Apted has returned to several times.
In 1979 he directed the Hollywood-financed Agatha, featuring a strong performance by Vanessa Redgrave. The majority of Apted's successful feature films since then have been based around a female protagonist. He went to the United States in 1980, and there directed Coal Miner's Daughter, which received seven Academy Award nominations, winning best actress for Sissy Spacek. Sigourney Weaver and Jodie Foster have also earned Academy Award nominations for their work in Apted-directed films.
Apted has also made several films with a strong social message or that deal with an ethical dilemma. In 1983 he directed Gorky Park, a political thriller based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, that deals with police corruption in the former Soviet Union. Class Action deals with a corporate whistle blower, and Extreme Measures is about medical ethics.
In addition to feature films, Apted has continued to direct a number of documentaries, including Bring on the Night, a feature-length concert film about the making of Sting's first solo album. After making Thunderheart, Apted also made the documentary Incident at Oglala detailing the actual events behind the film.
Apted directed the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, the first Bond film in which the main villain is a woman. Apted also gave considerably more screen time than usual to the character of M, as played by Judi Dench.
On June 29, 2003 he was elected President of the Directors Guild of America. He returned to television, directing the first three episodes of the TV series Rome. His latest feature film project is Amazing Grace, which premièred at the closing of the Toronto Film Festival on September 16, 2006.
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