Alan Parker

Alan Parker spent his late teens writing ad copy and directing television commercials, racking up awards for creativity across a decade before he turned to features. He broke through with Bugsy Malone in 1976, then Midnight Express two years later, establishing a pattern he'd hold for thirty years: musicals one moment (Fame, The Wall, Evita), grim true-story dramas the next (Mississippi Burning, Angela's Ashes), with detours into psychological horror (Angel Heart) and family fracture (Shoot the Moon). His films collected nineteen BAFTAs, ten Golden Globes, six Oscars; Birdy won the Special Jur…