Death of Chiswick-based Director Alvin Rakoff Announced

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Canadian filmmaker worked with Olivier and discovered Connery

Alvin Rakoff at the ArtsEd in 2021. Picture: Roger Green

October 17, 2024

Alvin Rakoff, the Emmy-winning film and theatre director has died at his home in Bedford Park earlier this week.

His representative has confirmed that he passed away aged 97, surrounded by his family, on Saturday (12 October).

His career spanned decades and included work on programmes as varied as Z Cars and BBC’s Shakespeare productions, he is perhaps most widely known for directing A Voyage Round My Father starring Laurence Olivier in 1982.

Born in Toronto on 6 February, 1927, the third of seven children, he worked as a news reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) after graduating from the University of Toronto with a psychology degree. When he was 25 years old, the company paid for him to visit the UK and, within days of arrival, he had successfully pitched a script to the BBC and was invited to join the corporation’s director training course becoming the youngest producer/director in the BBC drama department.

An astonishingly diverse and successful career saw him work with Peter Sellers, Michael Caine and giving major career breaks to Sean Connery and Alan Rickman. He drafted in Connery as a late replacement for Jack Pallance in Requiem for a Heavyweight, a play produced on live TV in 1956. Prior to that Connery had only featured in a few walk-on parts. Alvin Rakoff also directed a number of series now regarded as classics including A Dance To The Music of Time which provided the first major role for (now Sir) Simon Russell Beale as well as featuring Sir John Gielgud.

His Chiswick home was just up the road from Richard Briers on The Orchard and the pair became firm friends through their wives who had been acting together in BBC productions. While working with Sellers on Hoffman in 1970, they discovered a shared love for hi-fi and the actor helped install what was then state of the art equipment which continues to function to this day.

Alvin Rakoff talks to Torin Douglas at the Chiswick Book Festival. Picture: Roger Green

In 2021, he appeared in conversation with Torin Douglas at the ArtsEd to promote his book “I’m Just The Guy Who Says Action! “ during the Chiswick Book Festival which was an eye-opening experience for many in the audience who had previously been unaware that someone, regarded as a legend in the industry, lived in their midst.

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