--- name: "Anthony Harvey" canonical: "https://film.one/person/anthony-harvey" fi1m_id: "anthony-harvey" imdb_id: "nm0367431" tmdb_id: 12009 wikidata_id: "Q543124" roles: ["Editor","Director"] born: "3 June 1931" died: "23 November 2017" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 83 average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-26T14:27:22.716598+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Anthony Harvey ## Identity Anthony Harvey - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/anthony-harvey - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** anthony-harvey - **IMDb ID:** nm0367431 - **TMDB ID:** 12009 - **Wikidata ID:** Q543124 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Harvey, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q543124, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0367431/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/12009 Editor and director. Born 3 June 1931 in London, England, UK. Died 23 November 2017. ## Details - **Work:** Editor, Director - **Born:** 3 June 1931, London, England, UK - **Died:** 23 November 2017 - **Active:** 1962–1968 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 1 directing, 2 crew - **Frequently works with:** [Stanley Kubrick](https://film.one/person/stanley-kubrick.md) - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Harvey, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q543124, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0367431/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/12009 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*The Lion in Winter*](https://film.one/film/the-lion-in-winter.md) (81) - **Tubi:** [*Lolita*](https://film.one/film/lolita.md) (73) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Anthony Harvey > Anthony Harvey learned his trade in the cutting room and directed like an editor: he knew how long a face could hold a silence and when to cut away. *The Lion in Winter* is the proof, and the career never gave him another like it. About halfway through *The Lion in Winter* (1968), Eleanor of Aquitaine has finished taking her husband apart, the door shuts behind him, and Katharine Hepburn sits down and simply stops. Harvey and his editor John Bloom hold on her face with nothing on the soundtrack. Most directors would have cut to Henry storming along a corridor. Harvey stays, and it moved us more than any of James Goldman's speeches, because it is the first time the film shows the wit costing something. That patience came from a decade of cutting other people's films. He worked as an assistant editor for the Boulting brothers from the mid-1950s and went on to edit fifteen films, among them *Lolita* (1962) and *Dr. Strangelove* (1964) for Stanley Kubrick, and *The Spy Who Came in from the Cold* (1965). *Strangelove* is the one to look at. Peter Sellers plays three parts, and Harvey's timing stops them becoming three separate turns while keeping the danger present between the jokes. Ninety-five minutes is the right length, and it is the editor who has to know that. He directed *Dutchman* (1966), a race-relations drama, and it impressed Peter O'Toole enough that *The Lion in Winter* followed. Goldman's play is a handful of people in a handful of rooms, talking, and Harvey's job was to stop it looking like a play that had wandered outdoors. He managed it mostly by refusing to make anything pretty, and then by trusting O'Toole and Hepburn to hold a room. They do. It is the film his reputation rests on, and it can bear the weight. What followed was thinner, and not always by his choice. *They Might Be Giants* (1971) is the usual example, a quixotic comedy-drama whose tone was changed by the studio. He turned down *Love Story* and *Cabaret*, and the indecision after his early success cost him. He kept faith with Hepburn across four projects, including a television *Glass Menagerie* (1973), and he directed thirteen films and television films before walking away in 1994, after the studio interfered with *This Can't Be Love*. "I believe the writer is the most important element in film-making," he said in 1996, which explains both his best film and his quarrels. If you are new to him, start with *Strangelove* and then *The Lion in Winter*, and watch what he does with a face after the talking stops. Editing first is a good way to become a director who gets out of the actors' way. On this evidence it is a harder habit to build a career on. ## Biography Anthony Harvey was a British film editor and director. He began his career as a child actor before working as an editor on fifteen films in the 1950s and 1960s, including *Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb* (1964). Harvey moved into directing in the mid-1960s. His second feature, *The Lion in Winter* (1968), brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director and a Directors Guild of America Award. He also directed *They Might Be Giants* (1971) and several later films and television productions. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, themoviedb.org.* ## On Fi1m (3) ### Directed (1) - *The Lion in Winter* (1968), Fi1m 81, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-lion-in-winter.md) ### Crew (2) — the average rests on these - *Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb* (1964), Fi1m 93, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb.md) - *Lolita* (1962), Fi1m 73, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/lolita.md) ## Complete filmography (27) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *This Can't Be Love* (1994), Director - *Grace Quigley* (1985), Director - *Svengali* (1983), Director - *The Patricia Neal Story* (1981), Director - *Richard's Things* (1980), Director - *Eagle's Wing* (1979), Director - *Players* (1979), Director - *The Disappearance of Aimee* (1976), Director - *The Abdication* (1974), Director - *The Glass Menagerie* (1973), Director - *They Might Be Giants* (1971), Director - *The Lion in Winter* (1968), Director — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/film/the-lion-in-winter.md) - *The Whisperers* (1967), Editor - *Giacometti* (1967), Editor - *Dutchman* (1966), Director, Editor - *The Spy Who Came In from the Cold* (1965), Editor - *Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb* (1964), Editor — Fi1m 93, [page](https://film.one/film/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb.md) - *The L-Shaped Room* (1962), Editor - *Lolita* (1962), Editor — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/film/lolita.md) - *The Millionairess* (1960), Editor - *The Angry Silence* (1960), Editor - *Carlton-Browne of the F.O.* (1959), Editor - *Happy Is the Bride* (1958), Editor - *Brothers in Law* (1957), Editor - *Private's Progress* (1956), Editor - *On Such a Night* (1956), Editor - *Caesar and Cleopatra* (1945), as Ptolemy ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1969: Best Director (nominated), for *The Lion in Winter* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/anthony-harvey