May | 2022 | ChicanePictures

One of the most accomplished and popular contemporary filmmakers, Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee was ranked 27th in the Guardian’s top 40 directors and 41st in a list of greatest directors of all time in a 2007 poll conducted by Total Film magazine. Ang is also one of the nicest people in the business. I have a had the privilege of meeting him on a number of occasions over the past few years.

His 15 feature films have received a truck load of accolades, including 38 Oscar nominations (four for Best Picture) with 12 wins, 49 BAFTA nominations for 24 wins and 23 Golden Globe nominations for nine wins. Personally he has received five Academy Award nominations, winning two for Best Director for LIFE OF PI in 2013 and BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in 2006. He has won five BAFTAS, including Best Film for SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995) and the Fellowship in 2020 for his Outstanding Contributions to British Cinema. He has also been the recipient of a number of honours and decorations, including a Knight of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2012) and the Legion of Honor (2021) from the French Government in the same year he received the Presidential Culture Award from Taiman’s president Thai-Ing-wen.

I sent this sketch to Ang to his home in New York State last year with a signing request and received a very nice reply from his wife Jane, thanking me for my letter and informing me that Ang was working in New Zealand and due to the covid restrictions was going to be there for some time, but as soon as he returned home she would make sure he signed and returned it, which is exactly what happened.

Drawing of Stephen Sondheim signed by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Maria Friedman, Dame Judy Dench, Petula Clark, Julia McKenzie, Michael Ball, Bernadette Peters, Sian Philips, Bonnie Langford, Janie Dee, Gary Wilmot, Clive Rowe, Charlie Stemp, Michael Xavier, Jon Robyns, Damien Lewis, Rob Brydon, Haydn Gwynn and Julian Ovenden, from the Stephen Sonheim Old Friends Tribute Concert, London

British producer and theatre impresario, Sir Cameron Mackintosh invited many of the late Stephen Sondheim’s old friends to join him in celebrating the great composer’s extraordinary talents and legacy at the West End theatre named after him. Considered one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century musical theatre, Stephen passed away at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut last November at the age of 91, before he was able to attend the official naming ceremony of the Shaftesbury Avenue theatre.

The tribute concert STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS (from a number in 1981’s MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG) on 3 May, directed by Maria Friedman was also simulcast at the nearby Prince Edward Theatre, due to ticket demand. All proceeds went to the Stephen Sondheim Foundation. In his five star review for the Guardian, Mark Lawson wrote, “A glorious all-star memorial service… Stephen Sondheim was so vast a talent that London required two theatres to remember him… each of the (41) tunes a eulogy.”

While I wasn’t unable to get (or indeed fit) every artist, I did manage 19 from the glittering line-up, who respectfully signed around the pencil portrait of the great man; Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Maria Friedman, Dame Judy Dench, Petula Clark, Julia McKenzie, Michael Ball, Bernadette Peters, Sian Philips, Bonnie Langford, Janie Dee, Gary Wilmot, Clive Rowe, Charlie Stemp, Michael Xavier, Jon Robyns, Damien Lewis, Rob Brydon, Haydn Gwynn and Julian Ovenden.