Anthony Asquith "Puffin" (1902-1968), youngest son of Herbert Henry and Margot Asquith, Count and Countess of Oxford.

His father was the British Prime Minister and he grew up in 10 Downing Street from when he was six years old to fifteen (1908-1916).

To the dismay of his political father, however, he didn’t take after his half siblings who where into politics or the law, but more after his mother who was more of a free spirit and artistically minded.

He did go to Oxford, like his father had, and studied the classics. After graduating he traveled to Hollywood at a time when things were really taking off and stayed with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. --  How about having Charlie Chaplin as a neighbor, nice, huh? When he returned to England the only job he could get was at the lowest level (tea boy) but with his family connections he moved up pretty quickly and by the age of twenty-five co-directed his first movie "Shooting Stars" (1928) with A.V. Bramble which today apparently is widely considered to a small classic and Britain’s greatest silent film -- at the time his salary was to £2 a week. His father thought the whole thing was a joke and was waiting for him to grow up.

Puffin continued on, regardless; but the film industry was going through some substantial growing pains into talkies and he struggled with the critics (artistically) who called his films too arty.

It seems his second break came in 1938 when he was allowed to co-direct the movie "Pygmalion"  because of his close relations with George Bernard Shaw who wrote the play (1914). The movie was a hit staring Leslie Howard (this success, however, would later totally be eclipse by another adaptation of Shaw’s work under the musical named “My Fair Lady” (1964) with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.)

But in 1938, Puffin was back in the drivers seat and he would never look back, Over the course of the next quarter century he would crank out a number of admirable films and would work with some of the greatest actors of the time: Laurence Olivier, Edith Evans, Rex Harrison, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Shirley MacLaine, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Leslie Caron, David Niven, Dirk Bogarde.

He wasn’t considered a Great Director, and after the time of his death a lot of his work was looked down on as not being cutting edge, but he was a Good Director and worked in what was England’s equivalent of the Hollywood studio system – cranking them out.

I personally haven’t seen a lot of his work – I intend to, but from what I can gather some of his more notable films also included: “Quiet Wedding” (1940);  “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1952) a theatrical version of Oscar Wilde's play; “The Winslow Boy” (1948); “Carrington VC” (1954); “The Millionairess” (1960);and “The Way To The Stars” (1945) – a movie I have seen but it was so long ago I don’t really remember much other than it was a WWII movie.

Apparently he had a kind heart and was generous to a fault and he struggled with alcoholism and died from complications from that – I think.

I wonder if his father ever came around to appreciating his choice of careers?

(britmovie.co.uk)

(britishpictures.com)

(screenonline.org.uk)

<>Directed films

Filmography (features only)

1927	Shooting Stars (co-directed)
1928	Underground
1930	A Cottage on Dartmoor
1931	Tell England (co-directed)
1932	Dance Pretty Lady
1933	The Lucky Number
1934	Unfinished Symphony
1935	Moscow Nights
1935	Brown on Resolution (co-directed)
1938	Pygmalion (co-directed)
1939	French Without Tears
1940	Freedom Radio
1940	Channel Incident
1940	Quiet Wedding
1941	Cottage to Let
1942	Uncensored
1943	The Demi-Paradise
1943	We Dive at Dawn
1944	Fanny by Gaslight
1945	The Way to the Stars
1946	While the Sun Shines
1948	The Winslow Boy
1950	The Woman in Question
1951	The Browning Version
1952	The Importance of Being Earnest
1953	The Net
1953	The Final Test
1954	The Young Lovers
1954	Carrington VC
1955	On Such a Night
1958	Orders to Kill
1959	Libel
1959	The Doctor's Dilemma
1960	The Millionairess
1961	Two Living, One Dead
1962	Guns of Darkness
1963	The VIPs
1964	The Yellow Rolls-Royce

 

Notes: 

Special thanks to Matt Davies, of Kansas City, a friend of the JSS Gallery, for sending me a note regarding this image.  

From: Matt Davies 

<matt davies @ jssgallery.org> 

Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002

The picture is not dated in the book, but I am guessing it would  be c. 1908 (?) as maybe he is about six in the drawing?

From John Sargent, 1927, by the Hon. Evan Charteris (published by Charles Scribner's Sons).  (Charteris was one of the Souls,  

and knew Sargent well.)

Exhibitions   

1916, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, hosted at the Grafton Galleries, London. Opened June, 1916.