Sinyard, Neil 1945–

(Neli Richard Sinyard)

PERSONAL: Born September 2, 1945, in Hull, North Humberside, England; son of Richard (a decorator) and Florence Elsie (a homemaker; maiden name, Field) Sinyard; married Lesley Bonham (a homemaker); children: Nathalie, Jessica, Joel. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of Hull, B.A. (with first-class honors); University of Manchester, M.A. Politics: "Lifelong Labour Party supporter." Hobbies and other interests: Music (mainly classical), football.

ADDRESSES: Home—42 Holderness Cres., Beverley HU17 0BE, England. Office—Department of English, University of Hull, Hull, Humberside HU6 7RX, England. E-mail—n.r.sinyard@hull.ac.uk.

CAREER: Writer and film critic. University of Hull, Hull, England, reader in film studies, 1989–.

AWARDS, HONORS: BP Arts Journalism Award, 1987; grants from Leverhulme Trust, 1990, and British Academy, 1998.

WRITINGS:

(With Adrian Turner) Journey down Sunset Boulevard: The Films of Billy Wilder, BCW, 1979.

Classic Movies, Hamlyn (London, England), 1985.

Directors: All-Time Greats, Gallery Books (New York, NY), 1985.

(General editor) All-Time Box-Office Hits, Gallery Books (New York, NY), 1985.

The Films of Richard Lester, Croom Helm (London, England), 1985.

Filming Literature: The Art of Screen Adaptation, Croom Helm (London, England), 1986.

The Films of Alfred Hitchcock, Admiral/Multimedia, 1986.

(With A. Goldau and H. Prinzler) Zinnemann, Verlag Filmland Presse (Munich, Germany), 1986.

The Films of Steven Spielberg, Hamlyn (London, England), 1987.

The Films of Woody Allen, Hamlyn (London, England), 1987.

The Best of Disney, W.H. Smith (London, England), 1988.

The Films of Mel Brooks, Hamlyn (London, England), 1988.

Marilyn, Magna Books, 1989.

Silent Movies, W.H. Smith (London, England), 1990.

The Films of Nicolas Roeg, Charles Letts (London, England), 1991.

Classic Movie Comedians, Bison (London, England), 1992.

Mel Gibson, Bison (London, England), 1992.

Children in the Movies, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Clint Eastwood, Bison (London, England), 1995.

Jack Clayton, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 2000.

(Editor, with Ian MacKillop) British Cinema of the 1950s: A Celebration, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 2003.

Fred Zinnemann: Films of Character and Conscience, McFarland (Jefferson, NC), 2003.

Graham Greene: A Literary Life, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

Coeditor of "British Film Makers" series, Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 2000–. Contributor to periodicals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Books on Richard Lester and William Wyler; a book on Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann.

SIDELIGHTS: Neil Sinyard told CA: "My primary motivation for writing is to communicate my love of someone's work to other people, hoping that there are people out there who feel the same or who will be stimulated. I've always felt the compulsion to write. As Graham Greene once said, 'I don't know what I'd do if I found I couldn't write another book.'

"I'm not aware of influences on my work as such, though I'm sure I unconsciously echo the style of people I admire—Billy Wilder, James Agee. I find myself quoting Leonard Bernstein a lot.

"My writing process involves long gestation and then intensive writing, generally at night. I write a first draft very roughly in longhand (I'm a one-finger typist, I'm afraid) and am often pleasantly surprised to find it close to the final version. When writing on Greene, I tried his method of 500 words a day, but it only worked in the final stage.

"I am inspired by a combination of suggestion and commission. I've been lucky in that a lot of my subjects have been labors of love: Wilder, Jack Clayton, Richard Lester, Hitchcock, Woody Allen, et cetera."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Contemporary Review, July, 2003, review of British Cinema of the 1950s: A Celebration, p. 63.