Anthony Minghella Anthony Minghella Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for "The English Patient" (1996). In addition, he received three more Academy Award nominations; he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for both "The English Patient" (1996) and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), and was posthumously nominated for Best Picture for "The Reader" (2008), as a co-producer. Minghella was born in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, an
Ranulph Fiennes He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Fiennes' mother was Audrey Joan (died 2004), younger daughter of Sir Percy Newson, Bt. Fiennes inherited his father's baronetcy, becoming the 3rd Baronet of Banbury, at his birth. Fiennes is a third cousin of Mark Fiennes, whose children include actors Joseph and Ralph Fiennes, and is a distant cousin to the British Royal Family. After the war his mother moved the family to South Africa, where he remained until he was 12. While in South Africa he attended Western Province Preparatory School in Newlands, Cape Town. Fiennes then returned to be educated