A solid and reliable filmmaker with frequent flairs of brilliance, Mackenzie gave up a career in acting because of a...
John Mackenzie is a member of Director

Does John Mackenzie Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, John Mackenzie has been died on 8 June, 2011 at London, England, UK.

🎂 John Mackenzie - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

When John Mackenzie die, John Mackenzie was 83 years old.

Popular As	John Mackenzie
Occupation	Director
Age	83 years old
Zodiac Sign	Gemini
Born	May 22, 1928 (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
Birthday	May 22
Town/City	Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Nationality	UK

🌙 Zodiac

John Mackenzie’s zodiac sign is Gemini. According to astrologers, Gemini is expressive and quick-witted, it represents two different personalities in one and you will never be sure which one you will face. They are sociable, communicative and ready for fun, with a tendency to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

John Mackenzie was born in the Year of the Dragon. A powerful sign, those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dragon are energetic and warm-hearted, charismatic, lucky at love and egotistic. They’re natural born leaders, good at giving orders and doing what’s necessary to remain on top. Compatible with Monkey and Rat.

A solid and reliable filmmaker with frequent flairs of brilliance, Mackenzie gave up a career in acting because of a desire to control what he was doing. He assisted Ken Loach on his classic early TV plays such as The Wednesday Play: Cathy Come Home (1966), which inspired him and gave him the best training a TV director could dream of.

It also taught him how to work with local people when filming on location and how to work quickly. But his interest was more in storytelling than political filmmaking and he began directing himself, with fabulous results.

He made three features early in his career, the best being Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971), a superb Hitchcockian thriller which proved his skill at suspense, something his no-one seemed to remember for another ten years.

He returned to TV to enjoy the golden age on Play for Today (1970), and formed a fruitful collaboration with Scottish writer Peter McDougall for four brilliant films. The first, Play for Today: Just Another Saturday (1975), won the Prix Italia.

Mackenzie also directed Dennis Potter's Play for Today: Double Dare (1976) superbly and produced a huge body of work including Play for Today: Red Shift (1978), Play for Today: A Passage to England (1975) and Play for Today: Shutdown (1973).

Always, he showed a brilliant ability to draw honest and natural performances from his actors, and frequently cast comedians or singers. He moved to features decisively with The Long Good Friday (1980) but a decade spent in Hollywood proved unfulfilling, artistically.

Although he has never achieved the recognition he richly deserves, Mackenzie is one of Britain's finest filmmakers.