PIERS HAGGARD (Director) – Born in London, England, Piers Haggard is a well known British film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter medium.
Haggard began his career directing plays for the anthology drama series “Thirty-Minute Theatre” in the 1960’s, later working on the more prestigious anthology shows “Armchair Theatre” (for ITV) and “Play for Today” (for the BBC). He directed for a variety of programs throughout the 1970’s, such as “The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes” and “Love for Lydia.” In 1971, he directed the feature film “Satan's Skin,” also known as “Blood on Satan's Claw.”
In 1978 Haggard was the director of Dennis Potter's landmark drama serial “Pennies From Heaven” for the BBC; and the following year he directed the science-fiction serial “Quatermass,” shown on the ITV network.
More recent work has included the Gerry Anderson science-fiction series “Space Precinct” and various one-off TV dramas such as “Cold Enough for Snow” and “The Hunt.”
In 1983, Haggard became one of the founding members of the Director's Guild of Great Britain.
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MARIAN REES (Co-Executive Producer) – Rees' career began in the 1960's as Associate Producer on the pilots of “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son” at Tandem Productions. She spent 17 years at Tandem, working with Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear, eventually heading the company's new development division. Rees then worked at Tomorrow Entertainment before leaving to form her own television production company, Marian Rees Associates, Inc.
24 films have been produced by Marian Rees Associates, Inc. since its inception in 1981, including the Emmy® Award winning Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation “Love Is Never Silent,” “Decoration Day” and “A Son’s Promise.” Other Rees’ productions have garnered 11 Emmy® Awards, 36 Emmy® nominations, two Golden Globe® Awards, sixChristopher Awards, the Humanitas Prize, a Peabody, two Gabriel Awards and several Monte Carlo Television Awards, among other industry and public honors.
Another Rees production, “Miss Rose White,” also a Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation (based on the Off Broadway Play “A Shayna Maidel”), aired April 26, 1992 on NBC and received four Emmy® Awards (including Best Television Movie), 10 Emmy® nominations and three Golden Globe® nominations.
Rees also served as Executive Producer on “Ruby Bridges,” a production for “The Wonderful World of Disney” on ABC, starring Lela Rochon, Kevin Pollak and Penelope Ann Miller, which won a coveted Humanitas Prize award.
Rees' contributions to both professional and civic organizations have been honored with numerous awards, among them the 1988 Publicists Guild of America Showmanship of the Year Award, Woman of the Year by Woman in Management, the YWCA Achievement Award, the 1987 Chaim Sheba Humanitarian Award, the 1988 Genii Award, the 1990 Woman of the Year by Women in Management, the University of Iowa distinguished Alumni Award and the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame Contributing Producer --Caucus Member of the Year Nominee in 1992.
She currently serves as Co-Chair of the National Council for Families and Television. Rees held the post of President of Women in Film for two consecutive terms, served as Vice President of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; and on the Boards of the American Film Institute, Women in Film, The Humanitas Children's Award, The Center for Population Options, Alternative Living for the Aged and The Producer's Guild of America.
Rees was born in Le Mars, Iowa and educated at the University of Iowa.
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ANNE HOPKINS (Co-Executive Producer) - Anne Hopkins, President and Partner of Marian Rees Associates, Inc., has been with the production company since its inception. Among her Producer credits are the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of “Miss Rose White” for NBC, which won four Emmy® Awards, including Best Television Movie. Most recently, Hopkins produced “Papa’s Angels,” starring Scott Bakula, Cynthia Nixon and Eva Marie Saint, which aired on CBS.
Additionally, Hopkins served as partner and Executive Producer with Marian Rees in ALT Films’ productions of “The American Collection for Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theatre,” which air on PBS.
As President of Marian Rees Associates, Hopkins is primarily responsible for the acquisition of material, selection of writers, marketing of material and also supervision of writers for materials developed by the company.
With considerable experience in both classical music and the Broadway stage prior to entering television, Hopkins is especially equipped to recognize important material and to implement it to the screen. Her first professional work, after studies at Hunter College in New York, was as production assistant for noted opera diva, Rise Stevens, working on the Metropolitan Opera National Company for two years. Later, as a free-lance theatrical production executive in New York, she was part of the team that created the Broadway plays “How to Be a Jewish Mother” and “Lovers and Other Strangers.”
Brought to California by Norman Lear as an executive with Tandem Productions, it was there that Hopkins first worked with Marian Rees on the feature film “Cold Turkey” and on the television series “All in the Family.” Later, she worked at Viacom, though she returned to Tandem for three seasons as assistant to the producer on “Sanford and Son.” Again, leaving Tandem, Hopkins joined Marian Rees at Tomorrow Entertainment and then at EMI Television, where she was story editor.
Hopkins is currently supervising over 20 projects in different stages of development.
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DAVID CUNLIFFE (Producer) – Emmy® Award nominated producer David Cunliffe is also a respected director in the television realm. Cunliffe has served as a producer or executive producer on television projects since the 1970’s, including the 1988 Emmy® Award nominee for Outstanding Drama Special, “The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank,” and television movies including author Rosamunde Pilcher’s “Summer Solstice” and “Winter Solstice,” “”Victoria and Albert” and “Love with the Perfect Stranger.” Cunliffe has also produced many television series, including numerous episodes of “ITV Playhouse,” “The Outsider,” “One Summer,” “Bloomfield” and “Airline,” to name just a few.”
Cunliffe spent many years directing earlier in his career, mostly for television series such as “Number 10,” “The Sandbaggers,” “Warship,” “New Scotland Yard,” several episodes of “ITV Playhouse” and television movies including “West of Paradise,” “Hedda Gabler” and “The Arcata Promise.”
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RIKOLT VON GAGERN (Producer) - Rikolt von Gagern is founder/owner and currently Managing Director of Gate Film Produktion GmbH in Munich, Germany; a film production company whose operational area covers production, co-production, distribution and financing of TV miniseries, feature films and commercials. Their first production was “Winter Solstice” a TV miniseries, shot in the UK in 2003, starring Peter Ustinov and Geraldine Chaplin. Von Gagern is responsible for all legal and financial aspects of the company, including raising the financing, as well as identifying potential film subjects, creative development, setting up the production units and supervising the entire production process.
Prior to Gate Films, von Gagern was Managing Director at Granada Media, one of Europe’s largest Media Companies. He was responsible for building up Granada’s German Production base and launching the operational business, adopting German working contracts and accounting methods for the UK mother company, raising financing for TV productions and supervising the development and production process. Von Gagern served as Director of Media Development, Europe for Granada prior to being promoted to Managing Director.
Before joining Granada Media, von Gagern spent many years at Tele München, a vertically and horizontally integrated German media company based in Munich, whose national and international operational areas cover distribution, production, broadcast and related services. Von Gagern began his career with the company as head of creative affairs, and then was promoted to head of co-production, where he was responsible for identifying co-production projects on the international market. He rose to Managing Director, responsible for Tele München´s national and international productions, international distribution and content development for TM´s broadcast interests.
While at Tele München, von Gagern produced international, award winning television films such as Ken Follet´s “Lie Down with Lions,” Rosamunde Pilcher's “September” and “Coming Home” and the remake of Daphne Du Maurier´s classic “Rebecca.” The cast members of these films included Timothy Dalton, Omar Sharif, Jacqueline Bisset, Marielle Hemingway, Michael York, Eduard Fox, Peter O´Toole, Joanna Lumely, Charles Dance and Faye Dunaway.
He began his career as a production assistant on various television productions and then moved on to become a freelance assistant director on international TV and Opera Productions.
Born in Salzburg, Austria, von Gagern graduated with a law degree from the School of Law at the University of Salzburg. He also served his Obligatory Military Service at Gebirgsjäger Batallion, Salzburg, where he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
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BRIAN FINCH (Writer) - For two decades, the late Brian Finch was one of the most prolific scriptwriters on the popular British TV serial “Coronation Street,” contributing 151 episodes to the series, breathing new life into the much admired show.
After leaving “Coronation Street” in 1989, Finch continued to write prolifically but gained his greatest success with a one-off script, fulfilling a long-time ambition to adapt Michelle Magorian's children's novel “Goodnight Mister Tom” for television (1998). The gentle, wartime story of a widower who builds up a friendship with an evacuee boy billeted in his home, was so publicly and critically acclaimed that it was repeated a total of six times on ITV. It won Bafta's Lew Grade Award and the Television and Radio Industries Club Award as ITV Programme of the Year in 1999.
Born in Wigan, Lancashire, in 1936, Finch attended St Joseph's School in the town and Thornleigh College, Bolton, before joining the Bolton Evening News as a junior reporter at the age of 15.
While doing National Service with the RAF in Paris, he wrote articles for the troops, and after demobilization found a job on the Manchester Evening News, then switched to the northern edition of TV Times, based in Manchester, where Finch’s assignments included ghost-writing articles for The Beatles.
Finch then worked as a BBC press officer, both in Manchester and London. His submission of a play to the drama department led to his first screened work, “Rodney, Our Intrepid Hero” (1966), about a Sunday newspaper reporter on the trail of a vice ring, which was broadcast in the prestigious Wednesday Play slot.
Finch’s scriptwriting career might have ended there had it not been for a call he made several years later to Granada Television, accidentally being put through to the writer Jack Rosenthal, who was then working on “Coronation Street” and invited Finch to try his hand. After becoming a full-time writer for television, he also contributed scripts to the daytime serial “Harriet's Back in Town,” the medical drama “Owen MD,” the crime series’ “Public Eye,” “Hunter's Walk” and “Strangers,” the sitcoms “The Life of Riley” and“The Squirrels,” the family drama “The Brothers” and the children's series “The Tomorrow People” and “Potter's Picture Palace.”
On his own, Finch wrote the Thirty-Minute Theatre production “An Arrow for Little Audrey,” the six-part children's thriller “The Chinese Puzzle” and the peak-time drama serial “Fallen Hero.”
From 1978 to 1989, he also wrote many episodes of “All Creatures Great and Small,” the popular BBC drama series starring Christopher Timothy and based on James Herriot's books, leaving just a year before its final run.
Finch and Johnny Byrne were the program's most regular writers and it seemed a short step for both of them to take on the same mantle for “Heartbeat,” ITV's adaptations of Nicholas Rhea's Constable novels. They joined it from its first series, in 1992 and Finch stayed for 14 years.
During these years, the versatile Finch also contributed to the crime series “Juliet Bravo,” “Bergerac,” “The Bill,” “Hetty Wainthropp Investigates” and wrote the BBC play “Good as Gold.” He also created and wrote the football drama serial “Murphy's Mob” for children's television and the comedy-drama “Flying Lady.”
With other writers, Finch adapted another Magorian novel for television, “Back Home,” and “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” starring Martin Clunes as the popular teacher. On his own, Finch also wrote the screenplay for “Heidi,” the 2005 feature film starring Max von Sydow and Diana Rigg.
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