--- name: "Leon Griffiths" canonical: "https://film.one/person/leon-griffiths" fi1m_id: "leon-griffiths" imdb_id: "nm0341707" tmdb_id: 153183 wikidata_id: "Q6524662" roles: ["Writer"] born: "15 February 1928" died: "10 June 1992" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "writer" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-07T10:43:06.095189+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." --- # Leon Griffiths ## Identity Leon Griffiths - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/leon-griffiths - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** leon-griffiths - **IMDb ID:** nm0341707 - **TMDB ID:** 153183 - **Wikidata ID:** Q6524662 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Griffiths, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6524662, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341707/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/153183 Writer. Born 15 February 1928 in Sheffield, England, United Kingdom. Died 10 June 1992. ## Details - **Work:** Writer - **Born:** 15 February 1928, Sheffield, England, United Kingdom - **Died:** 10 June 1992 - **Active:** 1970–1979 - **Frequently works with:** [Baz Taylor](https://film.one/person/baz-taylor.md), [Christopher Menaul](https://film.one/person/christopher-menaul.md), [Diarmuid Lawrence](https://film.one/person/diarmuid-lawrence.md), [Geoffrey Case](https://film.one/person/geoffrey-case.md), [Gordon Flemyng](https://film.one/person/gordon-flemyng.md), [Jim Hill](https://film.one/person/jim-hill.md), [Roger Bamford](https://film.one/person/roger-bamford.md), [Willis Hall](https://film.one/person/willis-hall.md) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Griffiths, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6524662, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341707/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/153183 ## Fi1m on Leon Griffiths > Leon Griffiths wrote crime for the pictures for twenty years and then, with *Minder*, found the trick of making a crook likeable without making him harmless. The series outlived his interest in it, which is the best evidence of how sturdy the idea was. Arthur Daley has something in the lock-up he would like you to have, and Terry McCann is standing just behind him in case you decline. That is the whole of *Minder* (1979), and Leon Griffiths built it. He had pitched a tougher crime series in the manner of *The Sweeney*, and he put in the pitch that "a leavening of humour is essential". The humour turned out to be the part everyone remembered. He came to television from newspapers and spent the 1960s and 1970s as a working screenwriter of crime and horror: a Burke and Hare picture, *The Flesh and the Fiends* (1960), *The Grissom Gang* (1971) for Robert Aldrich, *The Squeeze* (1977) for Michael Apted, and episodes of *Play for Today*. We have not reviewed those and will not pretend to a view of them here. What they show is a writer who knew the furniture of the genre well enough to rearrange it, which is what he did when *Minder* turned the private-eye plot into a story about a bodyguard and the man who cannot afford him. The material came from north London drinking clubs, where Griffiths sat and listened to what he called semi-villains. "They lived on their wits and were great storytellers," he said. "I don't suppose half of what they said was true but it didn't matter." That is Arthur Daley exactly: George Cole gets the voice, but Griffiths supplied the logic, the way a loss becomes an investment and a lie becomes a kindness between friends. We found ourselves fond of Arthur against our better judgment, which is the trick of the writing; the terrible things he says are phrased as advice, and Dennis Waterman's Terry takes the punches so that we never have to see the cost. It is not a deep show, and we have said so. The scripts run to a formula, and the years without Waterman are thinner. Griffiths wrote the early episodes and then stepped back as the series moved further into comedy than he had wanted, and he was not happy about where it went. Yet the voice held. Tony Hoare, Andrew Payne, Paul Wheeler and the others kept writing in his register across 108 episodes and ten series, under directors as various as Roy Ward Baker and Martin Campbell, and the result still sounds like one man's idea of how people in that world talk. Watch the early series, where the jokes still have a bruise under them. That is Griffiths at his most present, and it is where the series earns the score we gave it. ## Biography Leon Griffiths (15 February 1928 – 10 June 1992) was a British television and film screenwriter. Born in Sheffield, he grew up in Glasgow. After national service with the British Forces Network, he worked as a journalist for the Daily Worker. His early screen credits include scripts for *The Adventures of Robin Hood*, *The Four Just Men* and *Play for Today*. Film work includes *The Grissom Gang* (1971), *The Hellfire Club* (1964), *The Treasure of Monte Cristo* (1964) and *The Squeeze* (1977). In 1979 he created the long-running ITV series *Minder*, for which he also wrote numerous episodes. He received the BAFTA Television Writers Award in 1985. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, comedy.co.uk.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Minder* (1979), Fi1m 78, Creator, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/minder.md) ## Complete filmography (29) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Minder* (2009), series, Creator - *Piece of Cake* (1988), series, Writer - *Minder* (1979), series, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/minder.md) - *Dinner at the Sporting Club* (1978), Writer - *Return of the Saint* (1978), series, Writer - *Hazell* (1978), series, Writer - *The Squeeze* (1977), Screenplay - *A Passage to England* (1975), Writer - *The Grissom Gang* (1971), Screenplay - *Play for Today* (1970), series, Writer - *The Greatest Mother of 'em All* (1969), Writer - *The Yellow Pill* (1969), Writer, Adaptation - *The Company of Five* (1968), series, Writer - *Half Hour Story* (1967), series, Writer - *The Voices in the Park* (1967), Writer - *Vacant Possession* (1966), Writer - *Some Lapse of Time* (1965), Adaptation - *Out of the Unknown* (1965), series, Writer - *Blackmail* (1965), series, Writer - *Redcap* (1964), series, Writer - *The Wednesday Play* (1964), series, Writer - *A Fear of Strangers* (1964), Screenplay - *Story Parade* (1964), series, Writer - *Out of This World* (1962), series, Writer - *The Secret of Monte Cristo* (1961), Writer - *Drama 61-67* (1961), series, Writer - *The Hellfire Club* (1961), Screenplay - *The Flesh and the Fiends* (1960), Screenplay - *The Adventures of Robin Hood* (1955), series, Writer --- © 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/leon-griffiths