Biography
Tony Earnshaw has always been a storyteller. His friends will vouch for that. As a child he told increasingly tall stories, relishing the telling rather than the end result. By the middle of his junior school years teachers were praising his skills as a spinner of epic yarns - "Tony writes really interesting stories" said one in an early school report - and by the close of his teens he opted for the only possible career: journalism.
A love of cinema led to his first forays into print, writing reviews and features for independent magazines and Star Wars fan clubs. He broke into 'legitimate' writing while still a student, selling profiles of Hollywood icons like Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson to the august Yorkshire Post - the newspaper for which he continues to write today.
He began a full-time career in newspaper journalism in 1987, and over the next seven years laboured on a dozen newspapers and magazines across the north of England. Cinema continued to be a passion, and he began freelancing in earnest in the early 1990s. Among the many titles to which he has contributed are Film Review, Starburst, Scarlet Street, Impact, Flicks, Hammer Horror, Filmhaftët and Star Wars: The Official Magazine.
He began a five-year stint at the Yorkshire Post in 1994, becoming resident film critic the following year - a position he still holds. He also joined Yorkshire Television as a film reviewer and interviewer in 1999, guesting on or co-presenting a string of shows including three seasons of Tonight, two seasons of New Visions, two seasons of The Buzz, the one-off special Film Festival 2001 and the nightly news magazine Calendar.
Tony's many and varied interview subjects for television have included Harrison Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, Julie Andrews, Liam Neeson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Travolta, Julianne Moore, George Clooney, Oliver Stone, Rene Russo and Christopher Lee.
His first book, An Actor, and a Rare One - Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes, was published by Scarecrow Press in 2001, winning the 'Special Sherlock Award' from Sherlock magazine in 2002.
His second book, Beating the Devil - The Making of Night of the Demon, was published to international acclaim by the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in collaboration with Tomahawk Press in 2005.
Tony has also compiled and edited two NMPFT monographs dedicated to Oscar-winning cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff and the prolific Indian star Om Puri. Both titles - Painter with Light and Soul of India - are available from the NMPFT.
Future book projects include a biography of Peter Cushing, a compendium on the films of Richard Burton, a volume (with award-winning photographer Jim Moran) dedicated to films made in Yorkshire and a long-cherished (and equally long delayed) examination of the making of The Wicker Man, for Tomahawk Press.
Tony is Head of Film Programming at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and, since 2000, has been director of the annual and widely respected Bradford Film Festival, based at the NMPFT. Among the guests he has interviewed before live audiences are actors Jean Simmons, Tom Courtenay, Ian Carmichael, Patrick Stewart, Jenny Agutter and Hammer Films scream queen Barbara Shelley, filmmakers Richard Attenborough, Ken Annakin, Jack Cardiff, Robin (The Wicker Man) Hardy, Mike Hodges, Freddie Francis, Guy (Goldfinger) Hamilton and Roy Ward Baker, producers Michael (The Deer Hunter) Deeley and Euan (The Wild Geese) Lloyd and legendary special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen.
His position at the NMPFT has allowed him to produce a number of 'talking head' feature documentaries based on on-stage interviews with festival guests. They include Leatherface Speaks: An Informal Interview with Gunnar Hansen (masked star of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Richard Attenborough: The Actors' Director, Jean Simmons: Rose of England and Mike Hodges: Uncompromising Poet of the Prescient. A new film - Jenny Agutter: A Charmed Life - is in development.
> Here is a selected list of Tony's credits in film, television and radio.