The Long-Distance Runner: An Autobiography [Hardcover]

Tony Richardson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

The memoirs of a noted film and theater director, who recently died from AIDS, chronicles his rise through the world of British theater, exploring the joys and sorrows of his personal life, including his marriage, affairs, and friendships. 25,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This book is a series of personal reminiscences by film and theater director Richardson. The manuscript was found by his daughter, Natasha, after his tragic death from AIDS. While Natasha had some doubt that Richardson intended it for publication, readers will be glad she made the decision to provide a last intimate look at the life of one of the creative geniuses of theater and cinema. In spite of Richardson's slight tendency to ramble, his personal insights into cinema productions like Tom Jones (1963) and personalities like Jeanne Moreau make this a most worthwhile book. This book should appeal to both the theater professional and the student of theater or cinema, and any library with a theater history or cinema history collection should consider purchasing it. Additionally, because it is so informal and personal, it will attract many casual readers as well.
- Jon P. Cobes, Central Wyoming Coll., Riverton
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Movie and stage director Richardson (Tom Jones, Hotel New Hampshire) writes an autobiography that is at once compelling and disappointing. His childhood of separation and alienation is reminiscent of a Dickens novel both in tone and in description, and the British class system receives much of the blame. But the story and mood change as Richardson attends Oxford and begins his directorial apprenticeship. His personality, so vividly revealed in the introductory chapters, is diminished if not exactly lost. There is much behind-the-scenes information about the stage and movie industry, and Richardson is not afraid to explore the personalities of important actors and actresses, such as Laurence Olivier. The intricacies of moviemaking concern much of the book's last half, from the financing of movies to working with quirky (when not outright deranged) actors and actresses. Of Richardson the person there are many details but there is little resonance--except in a few places, as where he admits that Tom Jones, his biggest success and recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture was "botched" and "incomplete." Still, a strong picture of the acting industry and what it takes to succeed. Brian McCombie

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688121012
• ISBN-13: 978-0688121013
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A warm memoir. Honest and illuminating., September 21, 2009

By 

Matthew Styles "icthys31859" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Long-Distance Runner: An Autobiography (Hardcover)

The lovely Natasha Richardson led me to this book. I turned fifty the day she died; March 18, 2009. I had become an admirer of her's years before, after seeing "Patty Hearst", which I'd seen because Vanessa Redgrave had been my favorite actor and I was curious as to whether her daughter could act. Hell yeah she could! From then on I followed her career and like her mother she never let me down. Anyway, I actually stumbled on this, her father's wonderful autobiography, while trying to find something to read about Natasha. Like many, I was shocked by her passing and so I started hunting for comfort on the internet. What a boon this book turned out to be. Natasha herself wrote the moving forward. One of my all time favorite films is "A Taste of Honey", and I had over the years seen most of Tony Richardson's other major film work ("Tom Jones","The Hotel New Hampshire","Look Back in Anger", "The Entertainer","The Loneliness of..."), so that I was aware he was a brilliant filmmaker of sound integrity, but I had little knowledge of the life that informed his films, or that he'd even written this book, which was published after his untimely death from AIDS in 1991. Therefore, "The Long Distance Runner" put Tony Richardson's films in context for me. From it's pages emerged a born director with a strongly humane, humorous, unflinchingly down to earth point of view, who became a major influence on the British theater scene in the fifties and early sixties which gave him the opportunity to direct films and thereby win an Oscar. Natasha it turns out didn't fall far from the tree in more ways than one. (Again and again she chose roles in interesting films and plays, full of peculiar, eccentric, one of a kind characters like those in her father's films and plays.) Particularly illuminating were Richardson's remembrances of the early Yorkshire upbringing that formed him, and of his exciting tenure at the helm of the Royal Court Theater which broke ground for a more realistic (less stagy and stodgy) postwar English theater . Later the book is a revealing look at independant versus studio filmmaking over the course of his career, which loses no relevance today. Throughout, Richardson is wittily straight forward yet modest as he writes candidly of the ins and outs of relationships with friends and ingenious colleagues (Olivier, Geilgud, Albert Finney, Richard Burton, Jack Nicholson, Peggy Ashcroft, Vivien Leigh, Mick Jagger...), falling for Vanessa, and the birth of his three daughters. Of interest also is his telling of his affair with Jeanne Moreau which ended his marriage to Redgrave (though they remained friends and repeatedly, collaborators). It all adds up to a story of a very full, well traveled life . A fascinating if understandably selective-(nothing about his fight with AIDS) account, of the man as well as the artist whose cinematic point of view (thanks to Turner Classic Movies) I've come to value greatly. See his films and read this book. After all ... may it comfort us to believe that the luminously beautiful Natasha Richardson is with her father now. For as evidenced by her touching forward to this book and her Tony acceptance speech of 1998, she loved him so. Rest in Peace Natasha and Tony. Thanks for enriching our lives. Like father, like daughter.