London film producer was 78 years old – The Hollywood Reporter

Mark Shelmerdine in 1980

Courtesy of Brian Eastman

Mark Shelmerdine, the Emmy-nominated producer who reshaped Alexander Korda’s sleepy London film label into an independent production force behind projects including I am Claudius, He died. He was 78 years old.

Shelmerdine died Oct. 26 in Santa Barbara after a long illness, said his friend and fellow producer Brian Eastman. Hollywood Reporter. After being diagnosed with a rare form of bile duct cancer in 2016, he underwent a life-saving liver transplant in 2018.

In the 1980s, Shelmerdine co-founded the Los Angeles branch of BAFTA and the Association of Independent Television Producers, helping to shape the sector that now dominates British television production. He also published self-help books written by his late wife, Susan Jeffers.

Shelmerdine, the first of three children, was born on March 27, 1945 in Buckinghamshire, England. His father, Dick, worked as a police officer in Singapore and the Bahamas and a postmaster in Gloucestershire, England.

Shelmerdine began his work as an accountant at Coopers & Lybrand and Taylor Clark Ltd., which was owned by Scottish businessman Robert Clark, whose portfolio included more than 90 films produced by London Films, which was founded by Hungarian-born Korda in 1932.

Among its pictures: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring Charles Laughton; Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon; I am Karenina (1948), starring Vivien Leigh; And The third man (1949), starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles.

Shelmerdine discovered that not only was it possible to reproduce the original titles, but that London Films owned the rights to many literary works from which Korda had made—or not made—features.

First, Shelmerdine developed Ross Poldark’s historical novels written by Winston Graham into a 29-episode BBC series starring Robin Ellis, Angharad Rhys and Clive Francis that ran from 1975 to 1977. He also retained the selling rights Poldark abroad, leading to the formation of London Films International.

London Films also holds the rights to a pair of films I, The Novels of Claudius It was written by Robert Graves and used in a film adaptation directed by Joseph von Sternberg that starred Laughton and Oberon. However, the production was canceled after Oberon was in a serious car accident in 1937 that left her with facial scars.

So Shelmerdine returned to work with the BBC to produce the popular 1976 miniseries I am Claudiuswhich starred Derek Jacobi as the Roman Emperor and won three BAFTA Awards and an International Emmy Award.

Before the contract expired, he had purchased London Films from Clarke.

Shelmerdine received an Emmy Award nomination for producing the 1982 remake of the film Scarlet Pimpernelstarring Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour, and followed it with retooled versions of Edna O’Brien’s film. Country girls1983 starring Sam Neill and Rudyard Kipling KimStarring Peter O’Toole in 1984.

Also in the 1980s, Shelmerdine became chairman of SelecTV, a leading cable and PPV company in the UK, and produced a revival of the Rod Serling series. Twilight Zone On CBS.

In 1986, he moved to Los Angeles with his second wife, Jeffers. Following the success of her first self-help book in 1987 Feel the fear anywayThey launched Jeffers Press, published audiobooks, and created Feel the Fear courses before her death in 2012.

Survivors include his third wife, Donna, whom he married in 2014; The children are Jay, the director, and Alice, the studio manager; Sister Judy; And five grandchildren.