J. Lee Thompson

Gender: Male
Born: 1st August 1914
Died: 30th August 2002
Nationality: England
Movies: 10 to Midnight, An Alligator Named Daisy, As Long as They're Happy, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Before Winter Comes, Caboblanco, Cape Fear, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Country Dance, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Eye of the Devil, Firewalker, For Better, for Worse, Happy Birthday to Me, Huckleberry Finn, I Aim at the Stars, Ice-Cold in Alex, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home, King Solomon's Mines, Kings of the Sun, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, Mackenna's Gold, Messenger of Death, Murder Without Crime, Murphy's Law, No Trees in the Street, Northwest Frontier, Planet of the Apes, Return from the Ashes, St. Ives, Taras Bulba, The Ambassador, The Chairman, The Evil That Men Do, The Good Companions, The Greek Tycoon, The Guns of Navarone, The Passage, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, The Weak and the Wicked, The White Buffalo, The Yellow Balloon, Tiger Bay, What a Way to Go!, Widow, Woman in a Dressing Gown, Yield to the Night

John Lee Thompson (1 August 1914 – 30 August 2002), better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.

Thompson was born in Bristol, England to a theatrical family. After studying at Dover College, he briefly appeared on the stage and wrote crime plays in his spare time. Thompson first drew critical notice when his play Double Error was staged on the West End of London in 1935, upon which he was hired as a scriptwriter for British International Pictures, acquirer of the play's film rights. During this initial BIP stint, Thompson made his only film appearance in the Carol Reed-directed Midshipman Easy (1935) and worked as a dialogue coach for Alfred Hitchcock's production of Jamaica Inn (1939).

The small-framed Englishman was occupied during World War II as a tailgunner and wireless operator for the Royal Air Force. He eventually returned to his scriptwriting duties at the Associated British Picture Corporation, a successor of BIP, in 1950. That year, Thompson was given his first film direction opportunity, Murder Without Crime.

Murder Without Crime was mostly ignored upon release. Thompson's first movie success was one he directed and

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