Michael Apted, the British filmmaker known for directing the Up series, along with Coal Miner’s Daughter, Nell, and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, has died at the age of 79.
Apted began his career in television with the Up series, as one of his first projects. The Up series is a series of documentary films that follows the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had nine episodes, one episode every seven years, spanning 56 years. The latest installment, 63 Up, was produced in 2019. It won a Peabody Award in 2012 “for its creator’s patience and its subjects’ humanity.”
Apted made his first feature film in 1972, The Triple Echo, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson. He went on to direct Agatha, featuring Vanessa Redgrave, and Coal Miner’s Daughter, which received seven Academy Award nominations, winning best actress for Sissy Spacek. In 1999, Apted directed the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.
He is survived by his wife, Paige Simpson, sons Jim and John, and daughter Lily Mellis.
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