Sam Mendes Biography

Summary

"Samuel Alexander Mendes" CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director. As a stage director, he is probably best known for his 1998 production of "Cabaret", starring Alan Cumming. As a film director, he is best known for his debut film, "American Beauty", for which he won an Academy Award for Directing. In 2000, Mendes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Biography

Early life

Mendes was born in Reading, Berkshire, England. He is the son of a Trinidadian Portuguese Protestant father and an English Jewish mother. His father, Peter, is the son of the Trinidadian writer Alfred Mendes, author of the novels "Black Fauns" and "Pitch Lake", and part of the group around CLR James and Albert Gomes which produced the Beacon literary magazine in the early 1930s. His secondary education was at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and he later attended Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge, gaining a first class degree in English.

Career

Mendes first attracted attention for his assured production of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" in the West End starring Judi Dench. He was under 25. Soon he was directing plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company where his productions, many of them featuring Simon Russell Beale, included "Troilus and Cressida", "Richard III" and "The Tempest". These productions were praised for their clarity, intelligence and stylishness.

He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre, directing Edward Bond's "The Sea", Jim Cartwright's "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice", Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party", and "Othello" with Simon Russell Beale as Iago.

In 1992 he was appointed artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, an intimate studio space in London's West End which he quickly transformed into one of the most exciting venues in the city. His opening production was Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" which revelled in the show's dark, comic brilliance and rescued it from the critical opprobrium it had suffered on its American opening. He followed this with a series of excellent classic revivals, many of which attracted some of the finest actors and biggest stars of the decade. Among Mendes's best productions were John Kander and Fred Ebb's "Cabaret", Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie", Stephen Sondheim's "Company", Alan Bennett's "Habeas Corpus" and his farewell duo of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night", which transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As artistic director Mendes also gave some of the country's finest younger directors the opportunity to do some of their best work: Matthew Warchus's production of Sam Shepard's "True West", Katie Mitchell's of Beckett's "Endgame", David Leveaux's of Sophocles's "Elektra" and Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" were amongst the most critically acclaimed of the decade. The Donmar's present artistic diretor Michael Grandage directed some of the key productions of the later part of Mendes's tenure, including Peter Nichols's "Passion Play" and "Privates on Parade" and Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along".

Won a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Newcomer after directing Judi Dench in "The Cherry Orchard".

1990: Began directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

1992: became artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre

1994: directed revival of "Oliver!" (with score specially revised and added to by the original composer and lyricist, Lionel Bart) at the London Palladium; the show ran for four years, becoming, on July 8 1997, the longest-running show at that venue.

1994: directed revival of "Cabaret"

1995: won Olivier Award for Best Director for "The Glass Menagerie"

1996: won Olivier Award for Best Director of a Musical for "Company"

1998: revival of "Cabaret" opens on Broadway; wins four Tony Awards, including Best Musical (Revival)

1998: directed David Hare's "The Blue Room", starring Nicole Kidman (and Iain Glen).

2003: won Olivier Award for Best Director for "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night"

2003: directed a Broadway revival of "Gypsy", starring Bernadette Peters.

2003: started film and theatre production company, Neal Street Productions, with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling.

Personal life

After a string of romances with actresses, including Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart Jane Horrocks and Rachel Weisz, Mendes married English actress Kate Winslet on May 24, 2003 in Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their first child, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, was born on December 22, 2004. Mendes also has a step-daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, from Winslet's first marriage to assistant director Jim Threapleton. The family now lives in New York City and Cotswolds, England.

Film

1999 "American Beauty" - directorial debut, won Golden Globe Award for Film Directing and Academy Award for Directing.

2002 "Road to Perdition" - based on the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins

2005 "Jarhead"

2006 "Starter for Ten", executive producer

2007 "The Kite Runner", executive producer

2007 "Things We Lost in the Fire", producer

2008 "Revolutionary Road"

2009 "Middlemarch"

Recurring motifs

Through his first three films he has so far maintained a recurrent motif where rain indicates death. In "American Beauty", the murderous climax unfolds on a rainy night. In "Road to Perdition", the murderous beginning unfolds on a rainy night. In "Jarhead", the oil 'rain' symbolizes the death of the marines' faith in the U.S. military.

Another trademark maintained through his first three feature films is a narrator voiceover that begins and ends the movie in similar fashion: Lester in "American Beauty", Michael in "Road to Perdition" and Swofford in "Jarhead".

Often casts Chris Cooper.

So far has enlisted Thomas Newman to score all of his films, acquiring Academy Award nominations for both "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition".