Background
He was born in Papua New Guinea, the son of Cecil Gill, a missionary doctor.
director film historian screenwriter
He was born in Papua New Guinea, the son of Cecil Gill, a missionary doctor.
The family returned to England in 1933 where Gill attended the Belmont Abbey School, Hereford.
Gill died at his home in Huntingdon, England, aged 69, after a heart attack. Gill trained as a dancer and joined Britain"s Sadler"s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1946, appearing in The Sleeping Princess, which opened in Covent Garden that year. Gill left ballet in 1955 to work in television, producing his mime play, The Way of the Cross, for the British Broadcasting Corporation before joining Associated-Rediffusion as an editors
As a result of that year"s franchise changes, he moved to Thames Television in 1968, working mainly on news and documentaries for, amongst others, the Today and This Week programmes.
Whilst at Thames, he met film historian Kevin Brownlow, with whom he was to work as co-director and producer on several projects including the Hollywood (1980) series and a restoration of Abel Gance"s epic Napoléon, which was performed in 1980 at the Empire, Leicester Square. Brownlow and Gill formed their own company, Photoplay Productions in 1990, in order to continue their restoration work and documentaries on silent cinema.
Among the 25 films they restored are Ben Hur, The Phantom of the Opera, The Thief of Bagdad and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Gill"s unexpected death, in September 1997, came as he was planning a series of archival films on dance and working on the 1997 Channel 4 Silent, which was to take place at the Royal Festival Hall later in the year.
Hollywood; David Gill"s documentary Hollywood, made in 1980 for Thames Television was shown as a 13-part series on Public Broadcasting Service television stations in the United States.
The Unknown Chaplin. Gill produced a subsequent three-part series, Unknown Chaplin, with Kevin Brownlow. His documentaries on Vietnam, South Africa and Northern Ireland were broadcast on the British series This Week.
Obituary The New York Times
Obituary The Independent (Print version 2 October 1997)
Obituary The Daily Telegraph (Print version 4 October 1997)
Obituary The Guardian (Print version 2 October 1997).