Richard Curtis

Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis (born 8 November 1956) is a British screenwriter, producer and film director.

For a short period in the 1970s, he lived in Warrington, Cheshire, where he attended Appleton Grammar School (now Bridgewater High School).

He then won a scholarship to Harrow School, where he joined the editorial team of The Harrovian, the weekly school magazine, and this, he asserts, is “where I learned all the skills that made me a sketch writer.

I did reviews, comment pieces and funny articles where I’d try to conjure something out of nothing.” While at Harrow, Curtis directed a school performance of Joe Orton's play The Erpingham Camp; this controversial choice was given the 'green light' by his classics master, James Morwood.

Later, Curtis commented that Morwood’s support had helped him understand that it was all right "to push boundaries and to be funny".

Curtis did not approve of fagging at the school, and at 18, when he became head of his house, he banned it.

He achieved a first-class Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford.

At the University of Oxford, he met and began working with Rowan Atkinson, after they both joined the scriptwriting team of the Etceteras revue, part of the Experimental Theatre Club.

He appeared in the company's "After Eights" at the Oxford Playhouse in May 1976.

Collaborating with Rowan Atkinson in the Oxford Revue, he appeared alongside him at his breakthrough Edinburgh Fringe show.

As a result, he was commissioned to co-write the BBC Radio 3 series The Atkinson People with Atkinson in 1978, which was broadcast in 1979.

He then began to write comedy for film and TV.

He was a regular writer on the BBC comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News, where he wrote many of the show's satirical sketches, often with Rowan Atkinson.

Curtis co-wrote with Philip Pope for The Hee Bee Gee Bees' song "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)", released in 1980, to parody the style of a series of The Bee Gees' disco hits.

First with Atkinson and later with Ben Elton, Curtis then wrote the Blackadder series from 1983 to 1989, each season focusing on a different era in British history.

Atkinson played the lead throughout, but Curtis was the only writer who participated in every episode of Blackadder.

In 1984 and 1985, Curtis wrote material for ITV's satirical puppet show Spitting Image.

His first was The Tall Guy (1989), a romantic comedy starring Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson and Rowan Atkinson and produced by Working Title films.

The pair continued their collaboration with the comedy series Mr. Bean, which ran from 1990 to 1995.

Curtis had by then already begun writing feature films.

The TV movie Bernard and the Genie followed in 1991.

One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), About Time (2013), and Yesterday (2019).

In 1994, Curtis created and co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley for comedian Dawn French, which was a great success.

Curtis achieved his breakthrough success with the romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. The 1994 film, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was produced on a limited budget by the British production company Working Title Films.

Curtis chose Mike Newell to direct the film after watching his TV film Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill.

Four Weddings and a Funeral proved to be the top-grossing British film in history at that time.

Curtis was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest figures in British comedy in 2003.

In an online poll conducted in 2004 Britain's Best Sitcom, it was voted the third-best sitcom in British history and Blackadder the second-best, making Curtis the only screenwriter to create two shows in the poll's top 10 programmes.

In 2007, Curtis received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

He is the co-founder, with Sir Lenny Henry, of the British charity Comic Relief, which has raised over £1 billion.

At the 2008 Britannia Awards, he received the BAFTA Humanitarian Award for co-creating Comic Relief and for his contributions to other charitable causes.

In 2008, he was ranked number 12 in a list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture" compiled by The Telegraph.

He is also known for the drama War Horse (2011) and for having co-written the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Vicar of Dibley.

His early career saw him write material for the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News and ITV's Spitting Image.

In 2012, he was one of the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Curtis was born in Wellington, New Zealand.

He is the son of Glyness S. and Anthony J. Curtis.

His father was a Czechoslovakian refugee who moved to Australia when aged thirteen and became an executive at Unilever.

Curtis and his family lived in several different countries during his childhood, including Sweden and the Philippines, before moving to the United Kingdom when he was 11.

Curtis attended Papplewick School in Ascot, Berkshire (as did his younger brother Jamie).