Anthony Minghella /

Anthony Minghella, CBE (6 January 1954 – 18 March 2008) was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient (1996), which also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film and Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Minghella was born in Ryde, Isle of Wight, the son of Gloria (née Arcari) and Edward Minghella, ice cream factory owners. His father was Italian/Scottish and his mother came from Leeds; her ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in the Lazio region of central Italy. Minghella attended Sandown Grammar School and St. John's, Portsmouth. He graduated from the University of Hull, where he completed undergraduate and postgraduate courses, but eventually abandoned his doctoral thesis. His first piece of produced work was a 1975 stage adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's Mobius the Stripper and it was his 1985 piece Whale Music that kickstarted his career. He made his directorial debut with a double bill of Samuel Beckett's Play and Happy Days.