Background
Haggard was born in London but grew up on a small farm in Clackmannanshire. He is the great-great-nephew of H. Rider Haggard, and is the son of the actor, poet and novelist Stephen Haggard who died in 1943.
Haggard was born in London but grew up on a small farm in Clackmannanshire. He is the great-great-nephew of H. Rider Haggard, and is the son of the actor, poet and novelist Stephen Haggard who died in 1943.
Haggard is married to stained glass artist Anna Sklovsky, with whom he has two children, the actress Daisy Haggard, and William Haggard who is an architect. Haggard began his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1960, then directed at Dundee Representative and Glasgow Citizens before joining the first National Theatre company in 1963 where he co-directed (John Dexter and Bill Gaskill) and assisted Laurence Olivier and Franco Zeffirelli. In 1965 he moved to British Broadcasting Corporation Television, directing plays for the anthology drama series Thirty-Minute Theatre in the 1960s, later working on the more prestigious anthology shows, Callan, Public Eye, Armchair Theatre (for Independent Television) and Play for Today (for the British Broadcasting Corporation).
Probably his best-known work came later in the decade.
Both of these productions are available on Digital Video Disc, and the Pennies From Heaven release includes an audio commentary from Haggard. His audio commentary on Venom is well known for its forthrightness, and some hilarious anecdotes on the competitive antics of stars Oliver Read and Klaus Kinski.
His film work includes I Can"t. I Can"t (1969), cult classic The Blood on Satan"s Claw (1970), the cinema version of Quatermass (1980), Summer Story (1988), The Fiendish Plot of Doctor Fu Manchu (1981), Peter Sellars last movie, and Venom (1982).
That year he also directed Ticket of Leave Manitoba at the National Theatre.
Later television work included Mrs Reinhardt (1986), a number of United States television Specials with stars such as Liza Minelli, Cheryl Ladd and Judge Reinholdt, the Gerry Anderson science-fiction series Space Precinct (1994) and various one-off television dramas such as Eskimo Day (1996) Cold Enough Foreign Snow (1997) and The Hunt (2001). The Canadian prairies-set Conquest (1998) was his last feature film. Haggard has also had a 40 year parallel career campaigning for directors’ rights.
He was President of The Association of Directors and Producers in 1976.
He founded and was first Chairman of the Directors Guild of Great Britain (DGGB,) formed in 1982 at a meeting of over a hundred film, theatre and television directors, many of them world famous, at Ronnie Scott"s Club in London. He started the Directors’ and Producers’ Rights Society (DPRS, 1987), serving on its board for 20 years, until it transmuted in 2007 into Directors United Kingdom, which he still serves as a Board Member.
He was also Vice President and Chairman of FERA, the Association of European film directors from 2010 - 2013. Haggard was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to film, television, and theatre.