Mark Cullingham, TV and film director, was born in Windsor, UK, on 14 September 1941 to Mollie and Gordon Cullingham. He was fascinated by the theatre from an early age and made it his career after leaving university.

Mark in the 1940s His father, Gordon Cullingham, had come to Windsor two years earlier to take up a position in the Borough Engineer's office of Windsor Corporation and had married Mollie shortly thereafter. For the first seven years of his life, Mark lived at no. 6 Maidenhead Road, directly opposite the newly built (1939) Windsor County Boys School where, 18 years later, he would be a much respected school captain. When very young he was taken to Windsor Castle to see a pantomime put on by the young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret. Elizabeth was later to become Queen Elizabeth II. Illustrated left is Mark's picture, 'Fludid', drawn in March 1947 when Windsor was flooded by the River Thames. To clarify his writing, it reads 'Dear Auntie Marjorie, I hope you are well. We are flooded over. The ducks are flooded, the road is flooded, the garden is flooded, the kitchen is flooded and we did have to go and live with Mrs Marrin because I have never known it to come up to the top of a house. Luv from Mark. The history of the Great Flood of 1947 is here. Mrs Marrin was the landlady in the flat above. Mark's first school was the Froebel School in Clarence Crescent run by the lovely Miss Harding. Here he would have met the Counsell twins, Jennifer and Elizabeth, whose parents, John Counsell and Mary Kerridge, the actress, had run the Theatre Royal since the 1930s.

Mark with his mother and younger brother Mark in 1952 acting out a play at an early age

Mark in the 1950s Mark with his mother and younger brother, shown left, at their home in Clarence Road where they moved to in 1948. This photograph dates from 1952. Mark showed an interest in the theatre from around ten and is seen left dressing up on the lawn of his home with his very young brother, Roger, as a page boy, and next door neighbour Susan Avery. Incidentally, the 'train' was an old navy surplus sail, probably from an airman's survival dinghy. Mark would have had his first taste of live theatre when he was taken to the Windsor 'panto' each year at the Theatre Royal. Mark was also interested in nature and drawing from an early age. One of his projects was to collect hundreds of sea shells of all kinds, and all sizes, whilst on holiday. He then glued them into display boxes, (his mother's old tights boxes!), grouped by species, and carefully labelled. His brother has a vivid memory of Mark constructing a dam in a stream one holiday, over which he carefully draped strands of fine green seaweed. The effect was striking! He created a similar effect one Christmas when he draped thousands of strands of silver Lametta over every possible branch of the Christmas Tree. It took him all day, but again, the effect was very striking. School reports throughout the 1950s showed a great talent in art and in 1955 he won a prize in a Slough Exhibition with his Plasticene model of Spanish Dancers, entitled Fiesta illustrated below. In his later years at school his art master, Mr Quinton, regularly awarded him 10/10 for his art homework. Mark's Plasticene model of Spanish Dancers, entitled Fiesta Mark was a keen member of the Nature Club in the Grammar School which was run by Raymond South. From time to time they would visit Windsor Great Park especially to hear the Dawn Chorus. Other locations included Ham Island in Old Windsor and the south coast for bird-watching expeditions. He took to the French language enthusiastically under his teacher, Mr Hechinger, and made numerous visits to France, exchanging with Max Patay of Rennes in the mid '50s, the first of many in the following years as Max was to become a great family friend. It is said that Mark had a near perfect French accent and was certainly close to fluent. Towards the end of his life he considered living in France and in the late 1980s and early 1990s viewed some possible houses in southern France, taking videos of likely properties. Mr Hechinger was almost certainly responsible for creating Mark's enjoyment of music for 'Hech', as he was known, had a very high quality 'Hi-Fi' system in his classroom, Room 4, at the Grammar School. It included a large Tannoy corner loudspeaker, and Garrard 301 turntable. These were costly items back in the 1950s and Hech used them every Monday after school to introduce boys to his collection of classical music. The programme for that week would be displayed along the corridor using the covers of the LPs brought in from Mr Hechinger's personal collection. In 1959 Mark was invited to be not only School Captain but also the first Captain of Allen House (Mr Hechinger was house master) which was created in 1959 by splitting Ottrey in half, Mark's original house. I recall that Mark was held in very high regard and much respected such that a room full of rowdy school boys would quieten down as soon as he walked in. Mark was also interested in sport and played in the school Rugby 1st XV where the school magazine, Windsorian, reports that his jumping in line-outs was 'superb'. (p. 49 Dec 1960) Mark had also been a member of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and spent many hours at the kitchen table with a hot spoon trying to get a really deep shine on the toe-caps of his uniform boots! One of his most notable contributions to school life was his association with Mr Bebbington, the enigmatic English master, in the preparation of the 'Windsorian' magazine for which he prepared a number of designs and logos. This 'team' was also involved in the production of 'Prelude', a publication devoted to poems and stories written by school pupils in 1959-1960. Away from school, holidays in the 1950s included time at Selsey in the family's caravan, 'Curlew', no doubt named at Mark's suggestion. The 'van provided a delightful holiday home which was towed down to the site every year from 1953 to about 1960. The caravan had been extensively refurbished in 1953 and included, incredibly, leaded windows! These were very fashionable when the caravan was built in the late 1930s Selsey was not the only family holiday destination however. In 1956 the family holidayed in Cornwall at Lamorna Cove, renting a cottage, and Sennen Cove in 1959, in a borrowed caravan, during which Mark 'discovered' the Minack Theatre, the magical cliffside open air theatre near Penzance. Mark must have decided there and then to take a production there one day. At that time the Minack was still being looked after and developed by its founder, Miss Rowena Cade. In 1958 the family took a holiday at Dunwich in Suffolk, most conveniently next door to the RSPB Nature Reserve at Minsmere. No doubt Mark chose the location! One of the star attractions there, which Mark was excited to see, were the rare Marsh Harriers.

Graduation Day! The Minack Theatre The 'Romeo and Juliet' seat at The Minack Theatre Mark during filming in the 1970s

Mark in the 1960s By 1960 Mark was studying English at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating in 1962. Towards the end of his school days he had shown a particular talent for the theatre and in 1961 returned to the school during the summer holidays to direct the hugely successful Angelina, a comedy by Malcolm Matthews. A 'rave' review of the play appeared in the 1960 edition of Windsorian, the school magazine. 'There was a laugh in almost every line' reported the Windsor & Eton Express. Mark Cullingham as Sir Jasper Smylethorpe-Montgomery, Angelina's wicked landlord The next year, Mark returned to direct an open-air production of Ralph Roister Doister in the school quadrangle. While at Oxford Mark directed John Whiting's A Penny for a Song in the grounds of Worcester College with the Worcester College Buskins in 1962, a production that they took to the Minack Theatre that Mark had been so impressed with a few years earlier. In 1963 he directed an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Romeo & Juliet taking it to The Minack Theatre once more. A seat in the auditorium moulded in concrete recalls this production and is shown on the left being visited by his mother, Mollie, in 1994. For a short while after university the possibility existed that Mark should join a printing company in Woking where his artistic talents could be channelled into design and print but this was not as appealing as the theatre so when Mark won a scholarship through Associated Television to work at Northampton Rep and further hone his skills in the theatre, this was the path that Mark chose. Within a year Mark was appointed as one of the assistant directors at the new Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. He thoroughly enjoyed being involved with the three opening productions, Samson Agonistes, with Michael Redgrave, A Month in the Country with Redgrave and Ingrid Bergman and Lionel and Clarissa. After making his name 'in the business' so to speak he was overjoyed to be asked to join Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. Mark worked alongside such famous actors as Sir Laurence himself, Robert Stephens, Frank Finlay and Maggie Smith as well as fellow Windsorian Geraldine McEwan. With his command of French, Mark worked alongside Comédie Francaise director Jacques Charon in a production of the Feydeau farce 'A Flea in Her Ear' in a translation by John Mortimer. It was one of the National Theatre's biggest successes at the time. Mark was later put in sole charge of the production when it moved to the Queen's Theatre in the West End. Around this time Mark was beginning to think of joining the BBC as a director of TV plays rather than theatre. By this time Mark had bought a house in Stockwell, near The Oval, in London plus a home from home in the Gloucestershire countryside. This had been one of Mark's dreams to own a cottage somewhere in the country reflecting his interest in bird-watching and the natural world generally. He eventually bought a cottage in Eastington, near Stroud, Gloucester, which he kept until he decided to move to the United States. The cottage is illustrated below at daffodil time. It was a beautiful home, with a stream running along one side of the garden and a weir that provided the peaceful sound of flowing water all day long. Mark had his fair share of problems during his time at the BBC, suffering from a series of technical strikes that disrupted production of his TV plays and it was no better when he moved to ITV when yet another strike delayed his projects. It was this aspect that forced him to eventually choose to work in America. Despite problems in the UK, one of his happiest projects was setting up and directing the Scottish Television production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, with Geraldine McEwan who sadly died in January 2015. Geraldine was a fellow Windsorian, her parents living in Old Windsor for many years. By the early 1980s Mark had moved to New York, and later to the West Coast, buying a house in Glenn Green, Los Angeles. He enjoyed a lot of success in the USA and was much respected by his friends and colleagues but by the late 1980s he had contracted AIDS which at that time was untreatable. Although he still managed to come back home to see his parents in Windsor from time to time, and they visited him often in Los Angeles, by January 1995 he had died. His family remain deeply grateful to all his friends in Los Angeles who rallied round to help him in his last year or so. His father died four years later in 1999 and his mother in 2010. His brother Roger has written this appreciation of Mark's life with much sadness but great pride in a very special brother. Roger Cullingham August 2012 Updated March 2017

Some more pictures of Mark Cullingham

	Mark in his twenties while living in Haverstock Hill, London, and working with Sir Laurence Olivier and The National Theatre company.
	Mark Cullingham, School Captain, with his fellow prefects in 1959.   Back row, left to right: D G Anthony, Ian Barr, J R Dean, P D Barnard Front row, left to right: Peter Smith, I S Kynoch, Headmaster Gerald Parker, Mark, Tony Ives. My thanks to Peter Smith who in 2017 sent a magnificent package of Windsor postcards from his home in Canada for use on the Windsor Forum here. When prepared, a new article will be published featuring this fascinating postcard correspondence between Peter's grandfather and grandmother back in Edwardian times.
	Mark in sultry mood... one of his mother's favourite pictures.
Appreciations From Kate Nelligan From Patricia B I met Mark Cullingham during my first job as a professional actress at The Bristol Old Vic company in the autumn of 1972. Mark had also just arrived to work there as an already highly respected and talented theatre director. Mark was tall, handsome and had the most beautiful and easy manners imaginable. He was the undisputed 'star' of the company. He was also blessedly unaware of that fact. Like everyone, I was drawn to him and we became friends. Often over that season and in the following years, he invited friends and colleagues to visit him at his cozy, oak-timbered cottage in the Cotswolds. I remember him teaching everyone to cook his famous spaghetti carbonara. He also introduced everyone to Elizabeth David's recipes from 'Slow Cooking' - delicious lamb stews and the like simmering away in the oven all night. There were blackberrying expeditions along the hedgerows in the autumn. In the evening, he would play records of Nina Simone singing 'Feelin' Good' and I remember Elgar and Vaughan Williams' 'The Lark Ascending' - with his friends gathered around the fire, warm and happy. The man brought beauty with him wherever he went. The walled garden he designed and planted by the stream at the cottage still is my favorite garden in the world - old fashioned, gorgeously scented, yellow roses trained against the sunny walls on hot summer afternoons, purple clematis and wisteria climbing up the cottage wall by the weir. There were long walks through the countryside, including an annual trip on the summer solstice to Uley Tumulus nearby to watch the sun go down on the longest day of the year. Mark loved to share what was beautiful in the world with those he loved and he discovered beauty, appreciated it and created it better than anyone I've ever known. He was also a friend who was always 'there' for you when times weren't so golden. Mark is a completely irreplaceable figure in my life; Still I know how incredibly lucky I am to have met and known such a man. Many thanks to Mark's brother Roger Cullingham for providing this wonderful way to commemorate him. Kate Nelligan Subject: From Mark Cullingham's webpage Beautiful retrospective/tribute to Mark Cullingham. Happened across this site today. (Some friends were talking about the BBC, and I flashed on Mark. I knew he'd been there.) So very moved to see the pictures and read of his life. I'm American. Met Mark briefly in the late 80's, early 90's in Los Angeles. We were introduced by a mutual friend who had also been at The National during Olivier's years. Mark gave me my first job in television, (a one-liner in a Disney picture), and hired me a few years later for another TV movie (wherein I was equally unmemorable in that one-liner way). He also employed me during the duration of a project to pick up groceries and water the beautiful garden at his cottage-like home in the hills of L.A.. What a wonderful, kind, and thoroughly generous man he was! I remember his smile to this day, so full of goodness, and when I saw these pictures, I just had to send this note thinking it might be passed on to a family member, for what it may be worth. It's always good to know there are others yet in the world who've crossed paths with our loved ones, gone from the world, and who were made better by the exchange. Kindest regards, Patricia B

To contact the author please email The Royal Windsor Website The Royal Windsor Website is available here