Tony Maylam

Tony Maylam (born 1943) is a BAFTA-nominated English filmmaker, known for directing documentaries such as White Rock, the 1979 thriller The Riddle of the Sands, and horror films such as The Burning and Split Second. Life and career Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career as an actor and then television presenter for ZDF Bermuda (The Tony Maylam Show) and the UK's ITV (Sportsweek), before concentrating solely on filmmaking. Always interested in sport, he began his cinematic career in 1972 with the film Cup Glory, a feature-length theatrical film with Richard Attenborough on the 100 years of the FA Cup. A number of films for television followed, which he wrote and directed, including Graham, on Graham Hill with Paul Newman (which was one of the highest rated documentaries shown on British television in the 1970s) and A Fast Drive in the Country with James Coburn. This led to White Rock, again featuring James Coburn, with a bestselling soundtrack by Rick Wakeman, which played in British cinemas for over six months and garnered wide international sales and recognition, including a 1977 BAFTA nomination for the Robert Flaherty Award (Feature Length Film, Documentary In Content). Another Tony Maylam film which received an extensive cinema release in 1976 was Genesis in Concert, featuring Phil Collins, which, like White Rock, was shot in anamorphic Panavision. This led to Tony Maylam's first fictional feature film, an adaption of the classic novel, The Riddle of the Sands, starring Simon MacCorkindale, Michael York and Jenny Agutter, which he wrote and directed. Bob and Harvey Weinstein then bought White Rock and Genesis for release in the United States and released it under the combined title of Sensasia (Harvey at the time was a major rock promoter based in Buffalo, New York). This led to the Weinstein brothers' first venture as full movie producers, the cult horror film The Burning, which Maylam directed and which was also the first film for Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter. Whilst in the United States, Maylam also directed a movie for ABC television, The Sins of Dorian Gray, a 1983 made-for-TV adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray that starred Anthony Perkins.