Background

Julian Fellowes was born on August 17, 1949, in Cairo, Egypt as Julian Alexander Fellowes to the family of an outstanding diplomat Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes. Julian was the youngest brother of four.

Education

Julian Fellowes studied at British private schools Wetherby School and St. Philip's School. Before university studies, he also attended Ampleforth College. After that, Fellowes became a student of Cambridge University and graduated from the Webber Douglas School of Drama.

Career

Julian Fellowes started his career in the mid-1970s as an actor in plays and had roles in over thirty films and television shows. He played Brother Hugo in the 1987 TV series Knights of God, Winston Churchill in both The Treaty in 1991 and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1992, Claud Seabrook in Our Friends in the North and the 2nd Duke of Richmond in Aristocrats.

Fellowes made the switch from acting to writing in 1994. He began to write TV adaptations of novels, notably Little Sir Nicholas, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and The Prince and the Pauper. With the miniseries Little Lord Fauntleroy for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Fellowes won an Emmy award.

Fellowes’s breakthrough came with his first produced screenplay, Gosford Park. When director Robert Altman was searching for a writer for the film, he wanted someone who knew England's class system well. He chose Julian because of Fellowes’ upbringing and his experiences living in an upper-class English family.

Among other Fellowes' screenwriting works are The Young Victoria, Vanity Fair, Separate Lies, The Tourist, and From Time to Time.

In 2010 Fellowes created the successful television drama series, Downton Abbey, for ITV. In 2011 the show received an Emmy for best drama series, and Fellowes received an Emmy for his writing. Later, in 2019, Julian became the screenwriter and one of the producers for the feature film Downton Abbey.

In 2012 Fellowes penned the script for the TV miniseries Titanic. He wrote the book for the stage musical School of Rock, which was adapted from Richard Linklater’s film of the same name, and wrote and produced a 2016 television adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel Doctor Thorne.

Besides, there are novels by Fellowes. Among them: Snobs, published in 2004, and Past Imperfect, released in 2009. Both of them became Sunday Times best-sellers. In addition to it, he is also the author of the interactive narrative Belgravia, a serialized novel. Fellowes also publicly acknowledged that he had written “bodice-ripping” romance novels under pseudonyms Rebecca Greville and Alexander Merrant.

Achievements

• For the role as Gosford Park screenwriter, Fellowes received an Oscar, a Golden Globe nomination, and a Circle Award from the New York Film Critics. He was also named Screenwriter of the Year by ShoWest in 2002.
  
  Julian Fellowes was named by Variety one of Ten Screenwriters to Watch.
  
  In October 2014 Julian was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Winchester in recognition of his international reputation in creative writing and the performing arts.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Snobs

    (In his superbly observed first novel, Julian Fellowes bri...)

    2004
  • Past Imperfect

    (Damian Baxter was a friend of the narrator at Cambridge. ...)

    2009

• movie

  • Gosford Park

    (As a hunting party gathers at the country estate, no one ...)

    2002
  • The Tourist

    (A mysterious woman and a mild-mannered American become in...)

    2010
  • The Young Victoria

    (Caught in a power struggle with her closest advisors, a y...)

    2009

• TV series

  • Downton Abbey (Season 2)

    (Downton Abbey returns as The Great War rages across Europ...)

    2012
  • Downton Abbey (Season 1)

    (Downton Abbey, a sprawling, lavish Edwardian mansion nest...)

    2010

Views

Quotations: "When you make your first film, there is a hell of a lot to think about, and you've got to have a gut understanding of your material. It's not enough to say, 'I've met people like this.' You've got to know them inside out. So with Separate Lies I placed my characters in a class that I understand, but it doesn't mean that this is a film about class. It's about being trapped, about the consequences of our choices, and about lying."

"We live in an era of tremendous dishonesty where people, even nice people, will say things they know are not true because they want to be perceived as someone who thinks they are true. But I think this is dangerous. I think personal dishonesty in a society is as dangerous as it is in an individual. For most of us the biggest journey in life, and certainly the toughest journey, is towards self-knowledge."

"There are limits to what any of us can achieve in life. If I wanted to be a catwalk model, I would be in trouble. But the greatest limit of all is when we do not know ourselves and when we do not admit that truth about ourselves to ourselves, and that buggers up our life."

"I have an absolutely phobic horror of controlled relationships. I despise controllers. And when I see that slightly patronizing relationship going on in front of me, as you often do in our industry, where the man who quite deliberately takes a partner who is less sophisticated, younger, from a less advantaged background or whatever, and he is becoming a kind of Higgins to her Eliza, I just want to punch him. I really hate it."

Personality

Julian Fellowes likes strong women. All the major women in his life: his mother, his wife, many of his women friends, know what they want and what they’re doing.

Interests

• TV soap Coronation Street, TV series Smash

Connections

Julian Fellowes has been married to Emma Joy Kitchener-Fellowes since April 28, 1990. They have one child.

Father:

Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes

Mother:

Olwen Mary Stuart-Jones

Spouse:

Emma Joy Kitchener-Fellowes

Son:

Peregrine Kitchener-Fellowes

niece:

Jessica Fellowes

Brother:

David Andrew Fellowes

Brother:

Rory Oliver Fellowes

Brother:

Nicholas Peregrine James Fellowes

Friend:

David Kingsley

colleague:

Reese Witherspoon

colleague:

Tamsin Greig

colleague:

Harriet Walter

colleague:

George Clooney

colleague:

Laura Carmichael

colleague:

Jim Carter

colleague:

Gareth Neame

colleague:

Liz Trubridge

colleague:

Maggie Smith