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Unrealistic

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In the interests of objectivity, this article ought to mention that many people, especially critics, dislike Curtis' soppy, superficial output, and its fantasy view of Britain that's so obviously made to sell abroad, especially to the US. THere's a rather nice story (recounted in Matthew Sweet's book Shepperton Babylon) of director John Maybury grabbing Curtis by the lapels at some official function and accusing him of having ruined British cinema. Also, anyone who knows Notting Hill knows that, for the past fifty years or so, it's been a largely black/multi-cultural area; not something reflected in Curtis' silly, snobbish film. Dolmance (talk) 13:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly odd that Curtis has moved from writing challenging political satire in his Spitting Image days to inane girly romcoms set in an unrecognizable tourist England. Some reference to this would be appropriate, though I don't feel the article is especially fawning overall. --80.176.142.11 (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

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Richard Curtis (screenwriter) → Richard Curtis — This page was originally at Richard Curtis but was moved to disambiguate from Richard Curtis (politician). However it is my opinion that the screenwriter is the more well known and brief look through the incoming links on Richard Curtis appear to mostly relate to the screenwriter rather than the politician. —Tim! 17:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Oppose Currently the politician Richard Curtis is more in forefront of coverage by reliable sources. I think the best solution is for the plain Richard Curtis to remain a link to disambiguation, at least in the name of NPOV. VanTucky Talk 00:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The problem is that when it was changed, the 100 or so long-standing links going to the screenwriter weren't.[1] Also, I imagine that the politician's current notability is a case of "recentism" and in a few months will not be as important, particularly if he's now resigned. A disambig link on the top of the screenwriter's page should suffice. Bob talk 10:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Curtis the screenwriter is of far more significant, lasting, and wide-reaching notability than a politician with a two-year career in a small state legislature. This is evidenced by the incoming links. I agree with Bob that the apparent relative notability of the politician is simply recentism, and, I think, is only due to the scandal. --bainer (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A google search produces 771,000 hits. There are many uses if this name even if we have not gotten around to adding them all. Vegaswikian 03:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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Any additional comments:

Just a note here: there is now a third Curtis added to the disambiguation page. VanTucky Talk 02:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We should only be looking at user-friendliness here. At the moment, we have over 100 incoming links to the screenwriter that annoyingly direct users to a dab page. The politician is currently in the news, but no doubt will quickly be less well-known; unless anyone has any overriding reason why we shouldn't make things easier for users (users looking for the politician would still have the same number of clicks to get there) I will move the page shortly. ELIMINATORJR 15:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Birthplace

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Why does it say he was born in England in his bio under the picture but Wellington, NZ in the actual article? Can we get some clarification please? Taifarious1 11:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*Early* writing career?

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Richard Curtis was 38 when he wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, to call everything before that point "early" is rather sloppy. There's no mention either of his writing work with Tony Robinson, or a novelization of Squirm-I'll need to check on this, but the dates seem to match.

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I have just modified 3 external links on Richard Curtis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

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Curtis and Harrow: fagging

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The article says: “he won a scholarship to Harrow School, where, as head boy, he abolished fagging.[1][failed verification]”

Even if the citation didn’t fail, this would need changing. Curtis was not Head Boy at Harrow, he was head of his House - not the same thing at all. Luckily there is an excellent reference for this from The Times Educational Supplement in 2015 written by Curtis himself.[2] This purports to be about how Curtis was inspired in various ways by his Classics master at Harrow, James Morwood, but it contains much more besides, including why Curtis objected to fagging. I will be altering the article shortly to accord with the TES piece. Brymor (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me. If you are soliciting votes (1) I don't think you should need a vote in order to correct an obvious error (though I suppose if you honestly think the thing could become contentious it is a worthwhile courtesy to mention it here in case it does) and (2) Given that you have found a plausible source, please do it (except that you already did). Especially if (3) the source cited for the false information is still accessible online yet appears to make no mention of Mr.Curtis.
And thank you. Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:40, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ "The Tatler List". Tatler. Archived from the original on 5 February 2016.
  2. ^ Curtis, Richard (27 March 2015). "James Morwood by Richard Curtis". The Times Educational Supplement. Retrieved 16 June 2022.

Updating Richards Page

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Dear administrators and editors,

This is Sy, Richards PA. We have been trying to make some updates to Richard's page because much of what is written is a little out dated or doesnt list his campaigning achievements fully. Next month he receives an Oscar for his humantarian work and so it is imperative that we get this up to date.

I would like to suggest all of the following edits please thank you so much for you assistance

complete rewrite of the article

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

Curtis was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest figures in British comedy in 2003. In 2008, he was ranked number 12 in a list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture" compiled by The Telegraph. 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.

Early life and education

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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). 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.

Early writing career

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

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. 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. 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 TV movie Bernard and the Genie followed in 1991.

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

Film career[edit source]

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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. It made an international star of Grant, and Curtis' Oscar nomination for the script catapulted him to prominence (though the Oscar went to Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary for Pulp Fiction). The film was also nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Forrest Gump.

Curtis' next film was also for Working Title, which has remained his artistic home ever since. 1997's Bean brought Mr. Bean to the big screen and was a huge hit around the world.

He continued his association with Working Title writing the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, which broke the record set by Four Weddings and a Funeral to become the top-grossing British film. The story of a lonely travel bookstore owner who falls in love with the world's most famous movie star was directed by Roger Michell.

Curtis next co-wrote the screen adaptation of the international bestseller Bridget Jones's Diary for Working Title. Curtis knew the novel's writer Helen Fielding. Indeed, he has credited her with saying that his original script for Four Weddings and a Funeral was too upbeat and needed the addition of the titular funeral.

Two years later, Curtis re-teamed with Working Title to write and direct Love Actually. Curtis has said in interviews that the sprawling, multi-character structure of Love Actually owes a debt to his favourite film, Robert Altman's Nashville. The film featured a "Who's Who" of UK actors, including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Andrew Lincoln, Alan Rickman and Keira Knightley, in a loosely connected series of stories about people in and out of love in London in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Its regular festive screening has seen it labelled as being arguably a modern-day Christmas staple.

Curtis followed this in 2004 with work as co-writer on Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary. Curtis then wrote the screenplay to The Girl in the Café, a television film directed by David Yates and produced by the BBC and HBO as part of the Make Poverty History campaign's Live 8 efforts in 2005. The film stars Bill Nighy as a civil servant and Kelly Macdonald as a young woman he falls in love with at a fictional G8 summit in Iceland. Macdonald's character pushes him to ask whether the developed countries of the world cannot do more to help the most impoverished. The film was timed to air just before the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. It received three Emmy Awards in 2006, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Kelly Macdonald and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special trophy for Curtis himself. Curtis said of Yates' direction that he made "a much more beautiful film, and a surprising film and a better film than I could possibly have made."

In May 2007, he received the BAFTA Fellowship at the British Academy Television Awards in recognition of his successful career in film and television and his charity efforts. Curtis next co-wrote with Anthony Minghella an adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which Minghella shot in mid-2007 in Botswana. It premiered on the BBC on 23 March 2008, just days after Minghella's death. The film did not run in the US until early 2009, when HBO aired it as the pilot of a resulting six-episode TV series with the same cast, on which Curtis served as executive producer.

His second film as writer/director, The Boat That Rocked, was released in 2009. The film was set in 1966 in the era of British pirate radio. It followed a group of DJs on a pirate radio station run from a boat in the North Sea. The film starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Gemma Arterton and Kenneth Branagh. The film was a commercial and critical disappointment in the UK. Curtis re-edited the film for its US release where it was re-titled Pirate Radio, but also failed to find an audience. He followed that with War Horse, which he rewrote for director Steven Spielberg based on an earlier script by playwright Lee Hall. Curtis was recommended to Spielberg by DreamWorks Studio executive Stacey Snider, who had worked with Curtis during her time at Universal Studios. Curtis's work on the World War I-set Blackadder Goes Forth meant he was already familiar with the period.

Curtis then wrote Mary and Martha, a BBC/HBO television film directed by Phillip Noyce. The film starred Hilary Swank and Brenda Blethyn as two women who bond after they both lose their sons to malaria. The film was broadcast in the UK on 1 March 2013. He next wrote and directed About Time, a romantic comedy/drama about time travel and family love. It starred Rachel McAdams, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Lydia Wilson and Vanessa Kirby. It was released in the UK on 4 September 2013. Soon after the film came out, Curtis delivered a screenwriting lecture as part of the BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series. He followed that with Trash, which he adapted from the novel by Andy Mulligan for director Stephen Daldry. With three unknown Brazilian children in the lead roles, the film co-starred Wagner Moura, Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen. It was filmed in 2013 in Rio de Janeiro and released in Brazil on 9 October 2014 and in the UK on 30 January 2015.

He next wrote Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, a BBC television film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel. Receiving acclaim, the film starred Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench, with James Corden as the narrator, was directed by Dearbhla Walsh and was broadcast on BBC on 1 January 2015.

His next film, Yesterday, was adapted from an original screenplay by Jack Barth (who received only "co-story" credit, reportedly at Curtis's insistence). The film, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Lily James and Himesh Patel, follows a young man who discovers that the entire world except for him has no memory of the Beatles, allowing him to become a global pop star by performing their songs as his own. While Barth's original screenplay depicted an obscure musician unable to capitalize on his windfall, Curtis's more conventional script featured an independent musician unable to control his own career once the music industry takes over. It began filming on 21 April 2018 and was released on 28 June 2019.

Campaigning[edit source]

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Richard with Lenny Henry are co-founders and co-creators of Comic Relief, which he started after visiting Ethiopia during the 1985 famine and led to the fundraising event, Red Nose Day. He has co-produced 21 live Comic Relief telethons for the BBC since 1988 and the charity has in total raised over £1.6 billion for charity projects in the UK and internationally, supporting over 100 million people around the world, across 12,991 projects - including projects with Oxfam, Save the Children and the Red Cross.  The television shows have featured many famous moments of British television, including the first ever Carpool Karaoke, and two mini-sequels of Richard’s films, Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

In 2004, Richard co-founded Make Poverty History - a coalition of hundreds of NGO organisations intent on persuading the G8 leaders to commit more money and resources to the fight against extreme poverty.  

A year of advocacy, campaigning and events included Nelson Mandela’s iconic address in Trafalgar Square, his triple Emmy Award winning campaigning film ‘The Girl In The Cafe’ - and finally Live 8, 8 stadium concerts broadcasting globally from each of the G8 countries, of which Richard was an executive producer.  It contributed significantly towards the G8 leaders forgiving $40bn of historic debts in 22 of the poorest countries in the world in 2005, and led to a sizeable increase to aid budgets in the UK.

In 2007, Richard collaborated with Simon Fuller and the American Idol team.  They used the Comic Relief template to raise money for people living in poverty all over the USA, and across the continent of Africa.  This first of the 3 Idol Gives Back Telethons raised $76 million.

Curtis helped spearhead the launch of the Robin Hood tax campaign in 2010. The campaign fights for a 0.05% tax levied on each bank trade ranging from shares to foreign exchange and derivatives that could generate $700bn worldwide and be spent on measures to combat domestic and international poverty as well as fight climate change.

In August 2014, Curtis was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

In 2015, Richard brought Comic Relief to the United States partnering with NBC to create Red Nose Day USA.  This has so far raised over $420m and supported over 25m children and families in the USA and worldwide, working with organisations including the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Feeding America and the Global Fund.  This brings the total raised by Comic Relief in the US and UK since 1985 to over $2 billion.

Also in 2015 Richard co-founded Project Everyone, a not for profit agency, set up to bring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to life - to make them more effective by making them more famous.  In collaboration with Jakob Trollback, they designed the visual identity of the SDGs, including the 17 icons and the colour wheel - and helped launch the Goals in a global broadcast in partnership with the United Nations and Global Citizen.

Under Richard’s leadership, they’ve gone on to deliver multiple campaigns for the SDGs including running ‘Goalkeepers’ with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, building the Forest for Change with Es Devlin at Somerset House, making the documentary ‘Nations United’, and creating a coalition of private sector companies called The Business Avengers - businesses such as Google and Unilever working together for the SDGs.vIn recognition of his work, Richard was made an SDG Advocate by the UN Members — SDG Advocates

In 2020, Curtis co-founded the climate finance campaign Make My Money Matter. where he has helped move £1.5 trillion into more sustainable investments. Their witty and popular campaigns have contributed to a 50% increase in public and business awareness of the links between the way we invest our money and the climate crisis.

In 2021, he joined the Rewriting Extinction campaign to fight the climate and biodiversity crisis through comics. He wrote a comic story in collaboration with War and Peas named "Woke". It was printed in the book The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World which was released on 28 October 2021 by DK.

Controversy[edit source]

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In October 2010, a short film created by Curtis titled No Pressure was released by the 10:10 campaign in Britain to promote climate change politics. The film depicted a series of scenes in which people were asked if they were going to participate in the 10:10 campaign, told there was "no pressure" to do so, but if they did not, they were blown up at the press of a red button. Reaction was mixed, but the video was swiftly removed from the organisation's website.

In March 2011, Curtis apologised following a complaint by the British Stammering Association about 2011 Comic Relief's opening skit, a parody by Lenny Henry of the 2010 film The King's Speech.

Personal life[edit source]

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Curtis lives in Hampstead and has a country house in Walberswick, Suffolk with broadcaster Emma Freud whom he married in September 2023, this was accidentally announced by Richard E Grant at Cheltenham Literature Festival in front of a packed audience; they have four children, including writer and activist Scarlett. He had previously dated Anne Strutt, now Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, before her marriage to Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Member of Parliament (MP). Curtis has named characters in his writing Bernard (reputedly after Bernard Jenkin). It is claimed he used the Jenkins' wedding as inspiration for Four Weddings and a Funeral. He is irreligious.

Portobellostudios (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Portobellostudios, once you have changed username to a personal name, not one which represents a business, and you have declared your PAID COI with Richard Curtis (and presumably with Emma Freud) you can use the {{edit COI/request}} template on this page to request that edits are made to the article on your behalf. They should be small discrete edits in a "Change X to Y" format and supported by reliable, verifiable, independent sources. Cabayi (talk) 10:32, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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