John Irvin, ‘Hamburger Hill’ & ‘Raw Deal’ Director, Dies At 86

British filmmaker John Irvin, known for action movies including Hamburger Hill and Raw Deal and BAFTA-winning TV series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, has died aged 86.

According to Irvin’s producers, the multi-BAFTA nominee died peacefully at the UK home of his sister-in-law on 11th August, surrounded by his family.

Irvin made more than thirty features in a career that spanned TV, documentaries, and independent film.

Irvin was known for his versatility and breadth of career. In a 2021 interview with Roel Haanen, it was written: “Not many filmmakers directed both Fred Astaire and Patrick Swayze. Or followed up a tender, thoughtful film written by Harold Pinter with an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick. But John did …”

Born to parents Charles and Elsie Winifred Irvin (neé Bending) his father Charles was a mechanical engineer who during the war joined the Royal Engineers and was deployed to the Middle East where he was involved in the construction of the Iran/Iraq Pipeline transporting oil from the Middle East. John Charles Greenway Irvin and his twin brother, David, were born in Wallasey Cheshire, on the 7th May 1940. Both boys went to Durham School, a renowned chorister school where John featured prominently in the choir. He was also a keen boxer and rowed competitively for Durham College

Irvin opted not to go to university; for a short while he taught Latin in a preparatory school to fund his enrollment into the London Film School. Irvin began his career working for British Movietone News. He directed his first film Gala Day (1963), a documentary financed by the British Film Institute, which was bought by the BBC. Within the same year his documentary short Inheritance (1963) was released. It was a film about the aftermath of the Algerian War, narrated by the legendary Richard Burton. It would win Irvin his first BAFTA, presented to him by Audrey Hepburn.

Throughout the sixties, Irvin made a number of acclaimed documentaries for his own company Mithras Films. He also worked during this time for the BBC and ITV where his work included several short films starring the young actors Edward Fox and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Irvin gave Hopkins his first TV role in The Peasants Revolt (1969), culminating in the same year was his omnibus film Beautiful, Beautiful (1969) an acclaimed documentary that highlighted photojournalists and the work of the war photographers who defined visual reporting in the 1960s. It featured Sir Don McCullin, Larry Burrows, Bruce Davidson and Eugene Smith, and was shot primarily in Vietnam, Northern Ireland and various conflict zones.

At the start of the seventies, Irvin began a prolific career in TV drama. He directed the acclaimed TV dramas The Nearly Man and Hard Times starring Timothy West for Granada TV. Then followed the critically acclaimed John Le Carre TV adaptation Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) for the BBC. Sir Alec Guinness, Sir Ian Richardson, Sir Patrick Stewart, Beryl Reid O.B.E and Michael Jayston starred. The series scored multiple BAFTA wins and was Emmy-nominated in the U.S.

Guinness wrote in later years about Irvin that he “admired a director with balls behind the camera!”

For the next thirty years Irvin worked closely with Hollywood and various studios. First up of note was The Dogs of War (1980), an adaptation of the Fredrick Forsyth bestselling book starring Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger. Irvin followed this with the horror film Ghost Story (1981) starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Houseman. The film was the third-highest grossing horror film of its year, taking $24M at the box office.

Next, Irvin made the biographical film Champions (1984) starring Sir John Hurt, Turtle Diary (1985) was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter and starred Sir Ben Kingsley, Dame Glenda Jackson and Sir Michael Gambon. Then Raw Deal (1986) starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The well-received Hamburger Hill followed in 1987 starring Don Cheadle, Dylan McDermott, Michael Boatman, Steven Weber and Courtney B. Vance – a film about one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. Paramount picked the film up for release stateside.

Irvin then made the crime thriller Next of Kin (1989) starring Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson. Eminent Domain (1991) starred Donald Sutherland and Anne Archer. Next, Robin Hood(1991) starred Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman. Widows Peak (1993), starring Mia Farrow, Dame Joan Plowright, Natasha Richardson, Jim Broadbent and Adrian Dunbar. Then, A Month By The Lake (1994) starring Dame Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox and Uma Thurman. In 1997 Irvin directed City Of Industry, a neo-noir crime thriller starring Harvey Keitel, Stephen Dorff and Timothy Hutton.

When Trumpets Fade (1998), with Ron Eldard, was commissioned by HBO as a forerunner to the same network’s Band Of Brothers.

It was at this time that Irvin, a longtime client of Independent Talent Group, made the move to making indie pictures in Europe. These include Shiner (2000) starring Sir Michael Caine, The Boys And Girl From County Clare (2003) starring Andrea Corr and Colm Meaney, followed by The Moon And The Stars (2006) starring Alfred Molina, Catherine McCormack and Sir Jonathan Pryce, and The Garden Of Eden (2008) with Jack Huston, Mena Suvari, Richard E Grant, Carmen Maura and Matthew Modine.

Irvin divided the last twenty years of his life between London and the Sussex countryside where he co-founded with his producer Claire Evans their own production company DearHeart. They began research in 2008 for Mandela’s’ Gun. Developed and researched by John and Claire, it was six years in the making and shot in seven countries… in 2016, producer Vaughn Mullady joined them. In early 2017 a festival cut of Mandela’s Gun was requested by the speaker of the U.K. Houses of Parliament to be screened in honor of President Nelson Mandela in the Speakers State Rooms where Mandela had been in residence.

At the time of Irvin’s death, he was working with new material and completing a final edit of Mandela’s Gun. He was also directing a feature documentary Water From An Ancient Well about his friend, the late and great South African musician Abdullah Ibrahim.

In 1970, Irvin married Sophie (neé Litchfield) who tragically died of cancer in 1991. Together John and Sophie had three children; Emilie, Luke, and Amy Irvin (who survive him) and two grandchildren, Finn and Isla Irvin, all of whom surrounded him in his final weeks and months of his life, rewatching movies with him while Irvin still found time to dictate work to his producers.