Colin Callender
British businessman
Sir Colin Nigel Callender (born May 1952) is a British television, film and theater producer. He is the former President of HBO Films and Founder/Chairman of Playground Entertainment, a production company based in New York and London.
Callender played a key role in shaping the British independent production sector during the birth of Channel Four. He was also responsible for HBO’s unprecedented commercial and critical success, setting new benchmarks for quality film and television production.
Early life and education
Callender was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in London, the son of Lydia and Martin Callender. He has a brother, Neeman, and a sister, Claire.
Callender holds a BA with Honours in Philosophy and Politics from the University of East Anglia.
Career
Early career
Callender started in the entertainment industry as a member of Britain's National Youth Theatre and began his production career in 1974 at the Royal Court Theatre in London as stage manager working with directors such as Mike Leigh, David Hare and Sam Shepard. Later, he joined Granada Television as a graduate trainee where he worked on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) the Granada co-production with NBC starring Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner and Laurence Olivier.
Primetime Television
In 1978, Callender co-founded Primetime Television where he quickly established himself as one of the UK's leading television and film producers.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colin Callender” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.