Waris Hussein is a British-Indian television director and film director best known for his many productions for British television, including Doctor Who and A Passage to India.
Background
Hussein was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, into a Saidanpur (Barabanki District) Taluqdar background, and grew up mainly in Bombay. He came to the United Kingdom with his family in 1946, when his father, Ali Bahadur Habibullah, was appointed to the Indian High Commission. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, his father returned to Pakistan, but his mother, Attia Hosain, chose to stay in England with her children, and worked as a writer and as broadcaster on the Indian Section of the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Eastern Service from 1949.
Education
Waris Hussein was educated at Clifton College, and then studied English literature at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he directed several plays.
Career
After graduating in 1960, Waris Hussein joined the British Broadcasting Corporation to train as a director He also changed his name from Habibullah to Hussein. Hussein directed the first ever Doctor Who serial, An Unearthly Child, in 1963, although he was unsure about the effect directing televisual science fiction would have on his career.
In 1964, Hussein returned to the series to direct most of the fourth serial, Marco Polo.
He went on to direct many other productions, such as: a British Broadcasting Corporation television version of A Passage to India (1965). He also directed for Thames the first story (a four-parter) in the Armchair Thriller series.
Hussein"s feature film A Touch of Love (1969) was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival. The latter film was based on the British Broadcasting Corporation serial about the Tudor monarch. Another was The Possession of Joel Delaney.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hussein directed several television movies in the United States.
In 1997, Hussein directed Sixth Happiness (1997), a film whose screenplay was written by Firdaus Kanga, the author of the semi-autobiographical novel Trying to Grow. Meera Syal, Nina Wadia, and Firdaus Kanga starred in the film.
In the British Broadcasting Corporation drama An Adventure in Space and Time (2013), about the creation of Doctor Who, Hussein was portrayed by actor Sacha Dhawan.
Membership
Waris Hussein is a member of Directors Guild American.