A profile of Sir George Martin, Britain's most celebrated record producer, from his early days at EMI/Parlophone to his work with The Beatles.
09-11-2012
2h 18m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Francis Hanly
Locations and Languages
Country:
US; GB
Filming:
GB
Languages:
en
Main Cast
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer, and musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Beatle", including by Paul McCartney, in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. Martin produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States.
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to Guinness World Records.
McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the UK.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 32 number one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.
McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.
Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940), better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in August 1962, taking the place of Pete Best. In addition to his contribution as drummer, Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and The Beatles version of "Act Naturally"), as co-writer with the song "What Goes On" and primary writer with "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".
As drummer for The Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills", technically limited by being a left-handed person playing a right-handed kit. Drummer Steve Smith said that Starr's popularity "brought forth a new paradigm" where "we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect" and that Starr "composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs". In 2011, Starr was picked as the fifth-best drummer of all-time by Rolling Stone readers, behind drummers such as John Bonham, Keith Moon and Neil Peart.
Starr is the most documented and critically acclaimed actor-Beatle, playing a central role in several Beatles films, and appearing in numerous other movies, both during and after his career with The Beatles. After The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Starr achieved solo musical success with several singles and albums, and recorded with each of his fellow ex-Beatles as they too developed their post-Beatle musical careers. He has also been featured in a number of TV documentaries, hosted TV shows, and narrated the first two series of the children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. He currently tours with the All-Starr Band.
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS (born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", and "The Spanish Inquisition".
Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara desert, the Himalayas and, most recently, Eastern Europe. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Palin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Bernard Cribbins (29 December 1928 - 27 July 2022) was an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, had been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 had still been an active performer.
He was particularly known to British audiences as the story-telling voice in The Wombles, a children's programme running which ran for 40 episodes between 1973 and 1975. He also recorded several hit novelty records in the early 1960s and was a regular and prolific performer on Jackanory on BBC TV between 1966 and 1991. Cribbins' most recent prominent role had been as Wilfred Mott, companion of the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bernard Cribbins licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Priscilla Maria Veronica White is best known by her stage name Cilla Black. She rose to fame in the 1960s as a pop singer and her singles "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "You're My World" both reached number one in the UK in 1964. She hosted her own variety show titled "Cilla" in the 60s and 70s and was an occasional comedy actress. Her career had a massive resurgence in the mid-80s and 1990s were she presented "Blind Date" were many tuned in for her acerbic comments, "Surprise Surprise" showed her softer side and "The Moment of Truth" was her successful peaktime game show. In the 2000s she put in memorable appearances on chat shows such as "The Paul O'Grady Show", "Loose Women" and "So Graham Norton". She died on 1st August 2015 after a fall in her villa in Estepona, Spain. The day after her funeral, the compilation album The Very Best of Cilla Black went to number one on the UK Albums Chart and the New Zealand Albums Chart; it was her first number one album.
American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park". His songs have been performed by many popular contemporary singers, including Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley,Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr.,and Carly Simon. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.
Beck grew up in Wallington, England. His mother’s piano playing and the family’s radio tuned to everything from dance to classical made sure Beck was surrounded by music from a young age. Today he is recognized as a groundbreaking artist who’s inimitable combination of primal shredding and cool perfectionism has left and indelible mark on everything from hard rock and jazz fusion to rockabilly and techno during the past 40-plus years.