MILLER, John 1937-

PERSONAL: Born 1937.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion Publishing Group, Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA, England.

CAREER: Freelance writer and broadcaster. British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), London, England, writer and producer, 1962-81. Also worked for UNESCO, 1971-72, and TVS Television, 1981-92. Producer of television documentaries, including Eye on the White House.

AWARDS, HONORS: Gold Plaque, Chicago International Film Festival, and Grand Award, New York International Film Festival, both for Eye on the White House; British Academy of Film and Television Arts award nomination, for John Gielgud: An Actor and His Time.

WRITINGS:

(With John Gielgud and John Powell) An Actor andHis Time, Sidgwick and Jackson (London, England), 1979.

An Englishman's Home, Countryside Books/TVS Television (Newbury, England), 1985.

Broadcasting: Getting in and Getting On, Newpoint (London, England), 1990.

(With John Gielgud) Shakespeare: Hit or Miss?, Sidgwick and Jackson (London, England), 1991, published as Acting Shakespeare, Scribner (New York, NY), 1992.

Ralph Richardson: The Authorized Biography, Sidgwick and Jackson (London, England), 1995.

(With Jim De Young) London Theatre Walks: ThirteenDramatic Tours through Four Centuries of History and Legend, photographs by Nathan Silver, Applause (London, England), 1997.

Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice, Weidenfeld & Nicholson (London, England), 1998. (Coauthor) John Mills, Up in the Clouds, Gentlemen

Please (memoir), 2001.

Peter Ustinov: The Gift of Laughter, Weidenfeld & Nicholson (London, England), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: As a broadcaster, documentarian, and author, John Miller has covered a U.S. presidential campaign, the history of the dukes of Norfolk, and the grandeur of England's stately homes. Eye on the White House, his documentary on ABC-TV's coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign, won two prestigious awards. His long career as a broadcaster for the BBC, UNESCO, and TVS has included conversations on history, politics, and especially the theater. Life on the British stage is a subject Miller has explored in a number of biographies and collaborations with some of Britain's most respected actors.

Building on a series of radio conversation, Miller and coauthor John Powell collaborated with acclaimed actor John Gielgud on his memoirs, published as An Actor and His Time. "Replete with charming anecdotes," according to Library Journal reviewer Alan Hochberg, the book recounts Gielgud's sixty years on stage and presents a virtual history of modern British theater from Noel Coward to Harold Pinter, and his experience on numerous film sets. "Miller and Powell have organized their subject's reminiscences into a chronological narrative that speaks in what one assumes to be the true Gielgud voice: cheery, generous, literate, self-critical, unpretentious," commented New York Times drama critic Frank Rich. Gielgud encountered nearly every famous name in show business, at one time or another, and there are witty portraits of T. S. Eliot, Orson Welles, and other eccentric characters, as well as interesting observations on the performances of his fellow thespians and some of the stranger moments on movie sets. He recalls one crewmember yelling at a bird that wandered into a shot: "Get back! Don't you want to work tomorrow?" Writing in the New Statesman, Ronald Hayman noted that Miller and Powell do "a good editorial job" and that An Actor and His Time. "will give a great deal of pleasure."

Some critics had hoped for more acting tips from An Actor and His Time, and Gielgud does provide some in his second memoir, Acting Shakespeare, again written in collaboration with Miller. Once again, however, the heart of this book is the anecdotes Gielgud tells about his own experiences interpreting Shakespeare during his long acting career, his account fleshed out with reprints of contemporary reviews, cast lists, and notes on a production of King Lear by the director. "Theatre fans can also count on astute, behind-the-scenes glimpses of Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, and other shining lights," noted Booklist reviewer Alice Joyce. "This book will be a delight for those who have followed Gielgud's career or simply love Shakespeare and tales of the stage," commented Library Journal reviewer Diane Albosta.

Miller's first solo bigraphy was of Gielgud's great stage partner, Ralph Richardson, Written with the approval of his widow, Mu Richardson, Ralph Richardson: The Authorized Biography was exhaustively researched, with insights from over a humdred of the actor's colleagues and friends. John Gielgud contributed the book's foreword.

Miller next turns to a living legend of the British stage. Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice chronicles the twists and turns of the Oscar-winning actress whose portrayal of Queen Victoria in the film Mrs. Brown and as "M" in recent James Bond films have given her a whole new audience. For American Theatre reviewer Benjamin Ivry, "This new biography is a welcome explanation of what she had been doing for the 65 years before E! Entertainment Television became aware of her existence." Interestingly, as Miller recounts, this consummate actress often neglects to read a script through before taking on a role, which can lead to some entertaining moments. For example, it was the first day of rehearsal before Dench found out, to her horror, that playing the title role of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage meant that she would be on stage throughout the entire performance. Despite anecdotes like these, some critics were disappointed in Miller's first solo effort at biography. "The essence of the human being that can be magically captured by a biographer is missing," wrote Library Journal contributor Bruce Henson. A Publishers Weekly reviewer was more pleased, noting that "Miller is adept at detailing and contextualizing Dench's career; he has interviewed almost everyone with whom Dench as worked." These interviews provide some glimpses into Dench's technique that should interest aspiring actors. As Ivry noted in his review, "In addition to being an excellent biography, the book rewards the reader with such gems as a laundry list of instructions on how to speak verse."

Miller told CA: "I always wrote my own scripts for broadcasting, and then increasingly wrote articles about issues raised in my programmes. After my long series of radio conversations with John Gielgud was adapted for the book An Actor and His Time, I became drawn to writing at much greater length.

"Two significant influences on my approach have been Laurence Irving for his masterful biography of his grandfather Henry Irving, and Michael Billington for his perceptive account of Peggy Ashcroft's career. In bothe cases they tried to analyse why they were such great actors as well as extraordinary human beings, and I have tried to follow their example.

"I do all my research first, then write in longhand, as my keyboard skills can't keep up with my thinking but my pen can. My wife types it into the word processor, and then I make any corrections or rewrites.

"One thing I learned early on was the fallibility of memory. I often heard several differing versions of the same story, so it is always important to check with two or more sources.

I have much enjoyed writing each one of my books, which were all rewarding in different ways, but I suppose Judy Dench is my favorite, as it has gone into three editions and continues to sell steadily around the world. It is by far the most successful of my books in reader popularity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Theatre, October, 1999, Benjamin Ivry, "How Dench Does It," p. 114.

Booklist, September 15, 1999, Alice Joyce, review of Acting Shakespeare, p. 113.

Library Journal, September 1, 1980, Alan Hochberg, review of An Actor and His Time, p. 1749; September 15, 1992, Diane Albosta, review of Acting Shakespeare, p. 66; January, 2000, Bruce Henson, review of Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice, p. 114.

New Statesman, January 4, 1980, Ronald Hayman, "Easy Breather," p. 26.

New York Times Book Review, October 19, 1980, Frank Rich, "Sir John's Theater," p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, November 22, 1999, review of JudiDench, p. 52.