Stephen Frears

Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English film and television director. Frears has directed numerous films since the 1980s including My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity, The Queen, Philomena, and Florence Foster Jenkins. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Director: for The Grifters and The Queen. In 2008 The Daily Telegraph named him among the 100 most influential people in British culture. 2Early life Frears was born in Leicester, England. His mother, Ruth M. (née Danziger), was a social worker, and his father, Russell E. Frears, was a general practitioner and accountant. Frears was brought up Anglican, and did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s. 2Education From 1954 to 1959, Frears was educated at Gresham's School, a boarding independent school for boys (now co-educational) in the market town of Holt in Norfolk. This was followed by Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1960 to 1963. 2Career At the University of Cambridge Frears was Assistant Stage Manager for the 1963 footlights Revue which starred Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Bill Oddie and David Hatc