Richard Lester Liebman (born January 19, 1932) is a retired American film director. He spent the majority of his professional life in the United Kingdom and is known for the fast-paced, flamboyant directing he brought to his comedy films, most notably the Beatles' vehicles A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965), and The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965).
Originally from Philadelphia, Lester began his career directing television, moving to the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. He collaborated with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, on The Goon Show and The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film. After breaking into film directing through his Beatles collaborations, he helmed various productions including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), How I Won the War (1967), Petulia (1968), The Three Musketeers (1973) and its two sequels, Robin and Marian (1976), Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979), and the superhero films Superman II (1980) and Superman III (1983).
A two-time BAFTA Award nominee, Lester is an Honorary Associate of London Film School and a BFI Fellow. According to the British Film Institute, "if any single director can encapsulate the popular image of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, then it is probably Richard Lester. With his use of flamboyant cinematic devices and liking for zany humour, he captured the vitality, and sometimes the triviality, of the period more vividly than any other director."
Richard Lester Liebman was born on January 19, 1932, to a Jewish family in Philadelphia. A child prodigy, he graduated from the William Penn Charter School, a Quaker school in Philadelphia, and began studies at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 15, graduating with a degree in clinical psychology in 1951.
Lester started in television in 1950, working as a stage hand, floor manager, assistant director, and eventually a director in less than a year, because no one else was around who knew how to do the work.
Lester was the music director on Action in the Afternoon, an American western television series that aired live on CBS from February 2, 1953, to January 29, 1954. The series originated from the studios and back lot of CBS's WCAU-TV, which was then in Philadelphia; it was broadcast Monday through Friday regardless of the weather. The half-hour series aired variously at 3:30 pm or 4:00 pm, throughout its run.
In May 1955, after a period spent busking around continental Europe, Lester moved to London and began work as a director in television, working for the low-budget producers the Danziger Brothers on episodes of Mark Saber, a half-hour detective series.
He worked as a writer on Curtains for Harry (1955) and for a few weeks, The Barris Beat (1956).
A variety show he produced caught the eye of Peter Sellers, who enlisted Lester's help in translating The Goon Show to television as The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956). It was a hit as were two follow-up shows: A Show Called Fred (1956) and Son of Fred (1956).
Lester recalled that A Show Called Fred was "broadcast live and that's why I went into film directing where you can do a second take!"
He wrote and directed episodes of the TV series After Hours (1958).
Lester received acclaim with The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), a short film he made with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. He did another short titled The Sound of Jazz (1959).
His first feature as director was It's Trad, Dad! (1962), a low-budget musical. His second was The Mouse on the Moon (1963), produced by Walter Shenson for United Artists starring Margaret Rutherford, a sequel to The Mouse That Roared (1959). He returned to TV, directing episodes of Room at the Bottom (1964).
The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film was a favourite of the Beatles, particularly John Lennon. When the band members were contracted to make a feature film, they chose Lester from a list of possible directors. A Hard Day's Night (1964) showed an exaggerated and simplified version of the Beatles' characters and proved to be an effective marketing tool. Many of its stylistic innovations survive as the forerunner of music videos; in particular, the multi-angle filming of a live performance. Lester was sent an award from MTV as "Father of the Music Video".
A Hard Day's Night was a huge critical and commercial success. Lester then directed the first of several quintessential "swinging" films, the sex comedy The Knack... and How to Get It (1965). It was the first of three of his films with actor Michael Crawford, and the first out of four credited collaborations with screenwriter Charles Wood. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Lester followed The Knack... and How to Get It with the Beatles film Help! (1965). A spoof of the popular James Bond spy thrillers, it was the second collaboration with screenwriter Charles Wood and another huge commercial success. Lester received a Hollywood offer to direct the film adaptation of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).
He then made the darkly surreal, satirical anti-war movie How I Won the War (1967) co-starring Crawford and Lennon, which Lester referred to as an "anti-anti-war movie". Although set in World War II, the film serves as an oblique reference to the Vietnam War, and at one point, breaking the fourth wall, references this directly.
He made Petulia (1968) with Julie Christie and George C. Scott, and a score by John Barry (who had also scored The Knack). He returned to his anti-war theme with the post-apocalyptic black comedy The Bed Sitting Room (1969), based on a play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. The screenplay was the fourth credited collaboration between Lester and Charles Wood, but Wood provided uncredited production rewrites for more films of Lester.