Film producer Greg Smith with Tom Nicholas and others

435-01-J.jpg

Dublin Core

Title

Film producer Greg Smith with Tom Nicholas and others

Subject

Cork Film Festival, Greg Smith, Lynda Bellingham, Tom Nicholas, Dermot Breen, Norman Cohen, London Friends of Cork, London

Description

This is a black and white photo of the film producer Greg Smith standing with Tom Nicholas, festival director Dermot Breen, and the actor Lynda Bellingham. Breen and Bellingham are facing the camera smiling, while Nicholas and Smith are in mid-conversation half-turned towards each other. The convivial group are at a drinks reception in London for the film festival. Hosted by the London Friends of Cork, and organised by Tom Nicholas, the London reception was a regular event, sometimes held at the iconic Martini Terrace at New Zealand House, and attended by celebrities and friends of the festival.

Greg Smith (1939-2009), standing on the left wearing a light-coloured fitted jacket, was the producer behind a series of X-rated successful movies during the 1970s including Confessions of a Window Cleaner (Val Guest, 1974), Confessions of a Pop Performer (Norman Cohen, 1975), Confessions of a Driving Instructor (Claire Brough, 1976), and Confessions from a Holiday Camp (Norman Cohen, 1977). His collaborations with the Irish director Norman Cohen also include Spike Milligan’s war memoirs: Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (Norman Cohen, 1973) and Stand up, Virgin Soldiers (Norman Cohen, 1977), starring Lynda Bellingham and Pamela Stephenson both of whom are in the archive.

Born in London, Smith worked in theatre as a young boy before establishing a talent agency in London where he signed on the Irish filmmaker Cohen. With the relaxation of censorship laws in the UK, Smith and Cohen turned a series of risqué best-selling paperback books, by Christopher Wood, into a successful run of Confessions movies. Smith went on to produce Stand up, Virgin Soldiers, starring his then-wife Lynda Bellingham who worked in many of his movies during this era. (Simon Sheridan, 'Greg Smith: Producer of the Confessions films,' Independent, 01.05.2009.)

Lynda Bellingham (1948-2014) was an English actor, broadcaster, and author who was a familiar presence on British television, in particular for her work as lunchtime chat show host on Loose Women between 2007 and 2011, with whom she made more than 300 appearances. She also had a long-standing television career in such shows as All Creatures Great and Small and as the Inquisitor in the Doctor Who serial Trial of a Time Lord in 1986. Beyond her film work in the Smith and Cohen film productions, she worked in theatre, pantomime, radio, and TV commercials, in particular on the long-running 'Oxo Family' campaign. She married the four-times married Greg Smith in 1975 and they divorced a year later.

Creator

University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, Pic Photos London

Source

Cork Film Festival Collection

Publisher

University College Cork

Date

1976

Contributor

Pic Photos London

Rights

©Pic Photos, London. All rights reserved. Please credit Cork International Film Festival & provide a link back to this site.

Format

Photo
TIFF
JPEG

Language

English, eng

Coverage

1976
Cork, Ireland

Still Image Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Photo

Physical Dimensions

252 x 200mm

Collection

Citation

University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, Pic Photos London, “Film producer Greg Smith with Tom Nicholas and others,” Cork International Film Festival Archive, accessed December 21, 2024, https://corkfilmfest.ucc.ie/items/show/430.