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Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English film director. Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s. He was educated at Gresham's School, Norfolk from 1954 to 1959, and later went on to study law at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1960 to 1963. After graduating from Cambridge, Frears worked as an assistant director on Morgan! (1966) and if.... (1968), but most of his early directing career was spent in television... MORE

Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English film director. Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s. He was educated at Gresham's School, Norfolk from 1954 to 1959, and later went on to study law at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1960 to 1963. After graduating from Cambridge, Frears worked as an assistant director on Morgan! (1966) and if.... (1968), but most of his early directing career was spent in television mainly for the BBC, but also for the commercial sector. He contributed to several high profile anthology series such as the BBC's Play for Today, and produced a series of Alan Bennett's plays for LWT, taking responsibility for working in the gallery on The Old Crowd while Lindsay Anderson worked with the actors. In the mid-1980s, Frears came to international attention as an important director of British and American films. His first film was Gumshoe (1971), but it was his production of the Hanif Kureishi screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette for Channel 4 in 1985 that unexpectedly led to his wider LESS