Ridley Scott

Presented with a BAFTA Fellowship at the 2018 Awards.

Received a TCL Chinese Theatre handprint ceremony on May 17, 2017. His hands and feet were encased in cement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. He first set foot on the famous sidewalk in 1960, when he had no intention of entering the movie business. He was 22, fresh out of college and after working in New York for nine months, saved enough money to travel to L.A. on a Greyhound bus. "One of the big deals for me was to come to Hollywood," Scott remembered. "I stayed in a boarding house nearby and walked to Hollywood Boulevard. I remember standing outside and staring at the footprints. Never, ever, would I have thought that this would happen." [Variety 2017].

On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Considers The Counselor (2013) to be one of his best films.

In 2012, Scott was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork - The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires to mark his 80th birthday.

In 2011, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The 2009 Sunday Times List estimated his net worth at $172 million.

Ranked #35 in the 2008 Telegraph's list "the 100 most powerful people in British culture".

He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007.

2005: Ranked #5 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Greatest directors ever!".

Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry".

2001: Ranked #31 in Entertainment Weekly's Power List.

Owns the visual effects company Mill Film, based in London. They did the majority of the effects work on Gladiator (2000).

With his brother Tony Scott, he bought Shepperton Studios in 1995 for £12 million.

In 1994, he was slated to direct "Hot Zone" from a screenplay by James V. Hart, based on the 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone" by Richard Preston. The film was to star Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, and was based on the true story of the discovery of the deadly Ebola virus. Some of Scott's regular collaborators slated to work on the film included cinematographer Hugh Johnson and production designer Ken Davis.Various factors, including the development of the similarly-plotted Outbreak (1995), led to the project being canceled. The very day this happened, Scott was given a copy of the script to White Squall (1996) and decided to direct it."Crisis in the Hot Zone" was eventually adapted as the National Geographic TV miniseries The Hot Zone (2019), with Scott serving as an executive producer.

He was the first choice to direct Point Break (1991), but he chose Thelma & Louise (1991) instead.

1990s: He was developing a film adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel, "I Am Legend". The project was filmed in 2008 by Francis Lawrence.

1986: Enya's recording "Aldebaran" is dedicated to him.

Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.

Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984.

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made.

He and Michael Mann have both directed a Hannibal Lecter film. They have also both worked frequently with an actor who has played Jack Crawford. Mann directed Dennis Farina's first film, Thief (1981), and he also used him on Miami Vice (1984). Scott cast Harvey Keitel in The Duellists (1977) and Thelma & Louise (1991). Keitel went on to play Jack Crawford in Red Dragon (2002).

Suffers from claustrophobia, a condition he actively sought to instill in his Alien (1979) cast by making their Nostromo living quarters as cramped as possible.

Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career.

The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.

")He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films.

With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.

Said that Peter Watkins's The War Game (1966), about London being nuclear-bombed had an impact on him: "I thought about it for a week after seeing it." And The Road (2009), based on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel: "That's really scary. I think there's a degree of uneasy accuracy. (...) We don't want to even consider that." [2016].

Whilst working as a set designer at the BBC, Scott was assigned to design the Daleks for the new BBC TV science-fiction series Doctor Who (1963). Scott passed the work on to his colleague Raymond Cusick, as he was unable to attend the filming at Ealing.

In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series.

He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Z Cars: Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising.

Scott had already shot the footage for his first short film while studying at the Royal College of Art in 1961. It was titled Boy and Bicycle (1965). It was funded with £65 (film and processing) and a Bolex 16mm camera (for a month-long free use) by the RCA. The film would finally be completed (with music, soundtrack and titles) and copyrighted in 1965 with a £250 grant from the British Film Institute.

Education: West Hartlepool College of Art (1954-1958: Diploma in Design 1958, with honors); Royal College of Art (autumn 1958-1961: M.A. in Graphic Design 1961). Two postgraduate courses at the RCA followed. Then he got a traveling scholarship and went to New York, where he gained experience in editing at Leacock/Pennebaker. A year later he would return to England where he worked as an art director for the BBC. His skill in designing sets for television eventually led to designing sets for commercials. After participating in the BBC's directors training course, he quit television. He decided to focus almost entirely on his advertisements and in 1965 he opened his own commercial production company called Ridley Scott Associates.

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear (then County Durham). His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the Royal Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.