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Ken Annakin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ken Annakin (born August 10, 1914 in Beverley, Yorkshire) is an English film director. His career in films followed his work experience in documentaries. He made his directing debut in 1947 at the Rank Organisation, although the following year he moved to Gainsborough Pictures to helm three films about the Huggetts, a working class family living in suburban England. Annakin became known for a series of Walt Disney adventures including The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
He was later associated with another American producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, when he was hired to direct the British segments in The Longest Day. As head of the 20th Century-Fox Studio, Zanuck endorsed Annakin's most ambitious project Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). He also directed the big-scale war film Battle of the Bulge (also 1965) for the Warner Brothers studio.
However, some of Annakin's better received films are smaller-scale comedies and dramas, including his episodes in Quartet (1948) and Trio (1950), based on Somerset Maugham's stories, Hotel Sahara (1951), Across the Bridge (1957), Crooks Anonymous (1962), The Fast Lady (1963) and The Informers (1963).
In 2002, Annakin was made an OBE by Queen Elizabeth.
He is a friend of George Lucas, and as such, was used by Lucas as the source of the name for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars.