Stewart Terence Herbert Young (20 June 1915 – 7 September 1994) was a British film director and screenwriter who worked in the United Kingdom, Europe and Hollywood. He is best known for directing three James Bond films: the first two films in the series, Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965). His other films include the Audrey Hepburn thrillers Wait Until Dark (1967) and Bloodline (1979), the historical drama Mayerling (1968), the infamous Korean War epic Inchon (1981), and the Charles Bronson films Cold Sweat (1970), Red Sun (1971), and The Valachi Papers (1972).
Young was born in the International Settlement, of Shanghai, China, to British parents, His civil registration documents gives his name as Stewart Terence Herbert Young, though he also used the name Shaun Terence Young, and is listed as such by the British Film Institute's Screenonline database.
Young’s father was a deputy commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police. His family moved back to England when he was a child, and he was educated at Harrow School in London. He read history at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. During the Second World War Young rose to the rank of captain in the British Army, and as intelligence officer of the Guards Armoured Division, Young was wounded in Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in 1944.
Young wrote film reviews for Granta and worked at Elstree Studios during his summer vacation. He broke into the industry as a screenwriter, earning a credit for Brian Desmond Hurst's On the Night of the Fire (1939), which was chosen as Britain's entry for the Cannes Film Festival. He wrote further scripts for Hurst: A Call for Arms (1940) (a short), Dangerous Moonlight (1941), and A Letter from Ulster (1942) (a short).
For other directors Young wrote Secret Mission (1942) (featuring a young James Mason) and On Approval (1944).
Young went off to war service. In 1946, he returned to assist Hurst again with the script of Theirs Is the Glory, which told the story of the fighting around Arnhem Bridge. Arnhem, coincidentally, was home to an adolescent Audrey Hepburn. During the later filming of Young's film Wait Until Dark, Hepburn and Young joked that he had been shelling his favourite star without even knowing it.
Young worked at Two Cities Films on the screenplays for Hurst's Hungry Hill (1947) and David McDonald's The Bad Lord Byron (1949). These films were expensive box office failures.
Young's first sole credit as director (and also Christopher Lee's film debut) was Corridor of Mirrors (1948), an acclaimed film made in France starring Eric Portman.
He followed it with a musical One Night with You (1948), shot in Italy. This was highly unsuccessful at the box office. In England Young was to direct Precious Bane with Stewart Granger but that was cancelled and instead he made Woman Hater (1948), a comedy with the actor. Young wrote and directed They Were Not Divided (1950), a war movie set in the Battle of Arnhem, in which Young had participated. It was Young's first hit as director.
Young directed Valley of Eagles (1951), a spy film on which he was credited on the script, which was partly shot in Sweden. He followed this with The Tall Headlines (1952).
Young then made the first film for Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli's Warwick Films, The Red Beret starring Alan Ladd. This movie was a notable success at the British box office and featured many crew who would later be significant on the Bond films - not just Allen, Broccoli and Young but also writer Richard Maibaum, camera operator Ted Moore and stuntman Bob Simmons.
Young made That Lady (1955) in Spain with Olivia de Havilland, which was the first film of Paul Scofield, although it was not a commercial success. Young worked for Alex Korda on Storm Over the Nile (1955), an essentially shot-for-shot remake of the 1939 film The Four Feathers. This was popular at the British box office.
Warwick asked Young back to do Safari (1956), a movie about the Mau Mau shot partly on location in Kenya, with Victor Mature and Janet Leigh. For the same company, Young directed Zarak (1957), also with Mature and Anita Ekberg. This was a big hit.
MGM hired Young to make Action of the Tiger (1957) with Van Johnson; a young Sean Connery had a supporting role. No Time to Die (1958), a war story set in North Africa, was Young's fourth film for Warwick, and third with Mature. Young was credited on the screenplay. He directed an episode of Playhouse 90 called "Dark as the Night" from a novel by James Hadley Chase; it was shot in London.
Young made Serious Charge (1959), which was Cliff Richard's film debut. Then he did Too Hot to Handle (1960) with Jayne Mansfield. Young went to Europe to make Black Tights (1961) in France, a ballet film, with Maurice Chevalier and Duel of Champions (1961), a sword-and-sandal film shot in Italy and Yugoslavia with Alan Ladd.
Albert Broccoli and Irving Allen had split as a producing team, and Broccoli went into partnership with Harry Saltzman to make a series of films based on the James Bond novels. Broccoli used many of the crew he had worked with during his time at Warwick for the first Bond movies, including Young as director, on Dr. No (1962). According to Bond historian, Steve Jay Rubin, "Tall, well-dressed and exquisitely mannered, Terence Young had all the panache of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He was also an avid reader of the novels and was in favour of retaining as much of Fleming’s writing for the film version of Dr. No as possible."
Young made several key contributions to the film including recruiting Sean Connery to portray Bond. Actress Lois Maxwell, who portrayed Miss Moneypenny, later said that "Terence took Sean under his wing. He took him to dinner, to his tailor, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat."
The movie was a huge box office success and was quickly followed by From Russia with Love (1963), an even bigger hit. During the filming, Young and a photographer nearly drowned when their helicopter crashed into the sea while filming a key sequence. They were rescued by other members of the film crew. Young was back behind the camera 30 minutes after being rescued.