Michael Lindsay-Hogg

Though director Michael Lindsay-Hogg has continually denied being the son of Orson Welles (despite the uncanny resemblance between the two), he is, without doubt, the son of actress Geraldine Fitzgerald. Lindsay-Hogg established his career directing the '60s British television rock video series Ready, Steady, Go! and would ultimately be credited as a sort of pre-MTV music video pioneer. Lindsay-Hogg created the visuals for the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and "Hey Jude," and eventually made his feature debut with the acclaimed Beatles documentary Let It Be (1970). Lindsay-Hogg is also an esteemed stage director and has won no small amount of critical praise for his handling of New York City productions of Agnes of God and the AIDS drama The Normal Heart (he would direct another AIDS drama, As Is, for American television in 1985). After filming the Watergate-inspired satire Nasty Habits in 1976, Lindsay-Hogg directed the first six installments to the BBC's 11-part Brideshead Revisited (1981) miniseries, which chronicles the saga of an aristocratic Catholic family. It gained a tremendous amount of popularity with American audiences when it made its PBS debut. In 1984, Lindsay-Hogg directed the widely praised television drama Master Harold and the Boys, which was adapted from the semiautobiographical play by South African author Athol Fugard, featuring a very young Matthew Broderick. Though the director did helm Object of Beauty, a 1991 comedy of manners with Andie MacDowell and John Malkovich, but much of his best work has been on the small-screen. Some of his most memorable titles include Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story (1986), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1989), and Frankie Starlight (1995), a unique story detailing the obstacles faced by a dwarf and his mother in postwar Ireland. Lindsay-Hogg is also responsible for directing the music documentary The Rolling Stones: Rock and Roll Circus (1997), as well as Two of Us (2000), which was based on the bittersweet reunion of Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1976.

~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide