PENDREIGH, Brian 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Mainstream Publishing, 7 Albany St., Edinburgh EH1 3UG, Scotland.

CAREER:

Scotsman, cinema writer and editor, 1987-97; freelance writer, beginning 1997.

WRITINGS:

On Location: The Film Fan's Guide to Britain and Ireland, Mainstream (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1995.

Mel Gibson and His Movies, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1997.

Ewan McGregor, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 1998.

The Scot Pack: The Further Adventures of the Trainspotters and Their Fellow Travellers, Mainstream (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2000.

The Legend of "The Planet of the Apes": Or How Hollywood Turned Darwin Upside Down, Boxtree (London, England), 2001.

The Pocket Scottish Movie Book, Mainstream (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2002.

Contributor to several periodicals, including the Guardian, the Sunday Times, and the Herald.

SIDELIGHTS:

For much of his publishing career, cinema writer Brian Pendreigh has kept an eye on his nearby surroundings. His first work, On Location: The Film Fan's Guide to Britain and Ireland, examines the on-location sites of over 200 films shot in the British Isles since the 1930s. Designed as part fun travel guide and part film history, the book includes information on the movies and their shooting locations, anecdotes from the sets, and photos of the surroundings. Carol J. Binkowski, in the Library Journal, called the guide "educational and well-researched," but in People Weekly, Mark Lasswell felt the "black-and-white—often muddy-gray—publicity stills" diminished On Location's visual impact.

In the late 1990s, Pendreigh wrote celebrity biographies of fellow Scotsman Ewan McGregor and non-Brit Mel Gibson. A Sight and Sound critic enjoyed the McGregor bio, declaring it a "wittily written and absorbing account of McGregor's life … [that] captures the actor's significance to current British cinema without trying [too] hard."

Writing about McGregor seemed to have laid the groundwork for Pendreigh's next major work, The Scot Pack: The Further Adventures of the Trainspotters and Their Fellow Travellers, a collective profile of major Scottish actors, directors, and films of the past and present. In addition to examining such Scottish film icons as Sean Connery, the book looks at how McGregor's breakthrough role in the 1996 film Trainspotting raised the international profile of the Scottish film industry.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, March 15, 1996, Carol J. Binkowski, review of On Location: The Film Fan's Guide toBritain and Ireland, p. 73; February 1, 2001, Kim Holston, review of The Scot Pack: The Further Adventures of the Trainspotters and Their Fellow Travellers, p. 98.

People Weekly, March 25, 1996, Mark Lasswell, review of On Location, p. 36.

Sight and Sound, February, 1999, review of Ewan McGregor, p. 32.*