Julian Fellowes

Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford DL (born 17 August 1949) is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, and a Conservative peer of the House of Lords. He is primarily known as the author of several Sunday Times best-seller novels; for the screenplay for the film Gosford Park, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2002; and as the creator, writer and executive producer of the multiple award-winning ITV series Downton Abbey (2010–2015).

The Right Honourable

The Lord Fellowes of West Stafford

DL
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
13 January 2011
Life Peerage
Personal details
Born
Julian Alexander Fellowes

(1949-08-17) 17 August 1949
Cairo, Egypt
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
Emma Joy Kitchener
(
m. 1990)
Children1
ResidenceDorset, England
Alma materMagdalene College, Cambridge;
Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
OccupationActor, novelist, screenwriter, film director

Early life and education

Fellowes was born in Cairo, Egypt, the youngest son of Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes, and his British wife, Olwen Mary (née Stuart-Jones).[1] His father was a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, restored to his throne during World War II.[1] His great grandfather was John Wrightson, a pioneer in agricultural education and the founder of Downton Agricultural College.[2]

Fellowes has three older brothers: Nicholas Peregrine James, actor and writer David Andrew, and playwright Roderick Oliver.[3] The siblings' childhood home was at Wetherby Place, South Kensington,[4] and afterwards at Chiddingly, East Sussex, where Fellowes lived from August 1959 until November 1988, and where his parents are buried.

The house in Chiddingly, which had been owned by the whodunit writer Clifford Kitchin, was within easy reach of London where his father, who had been a diplomat, worked for Shell. Fellowes has described his father as one "of that last generation of men who lived in a pat of butter without knowing it. My mother put him on a train on Monday mornings and drove up to London in the afternoon. At the flat she'd be waiting in a snappy little cocktail dress with a delicious dinner and drink. Lovely, really."

The friendship his family developed with another family in the village, the Kingsleys, influenced Fellowes. David Kingsley was head of British Lion Films, the company responsible for many Peter Sellers comedies. Sometimes "glamorous figures" would visit the Kingsleys' house. Fellowes said that he thinks he "learnt from David Kingsley that you could actually make a living in the film business."[5]

Fellowes was educated at several private schools in Britain including Wetherby School, St Philip's School (a Catholic boys school in South Kensington) and Ampleforth College, which his father had preferred over Eton in spite of its lower academic and social distinction. He read English Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights. He graduated with a 2:1.[6] He studied further at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Career

Television

Fellowes moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and played a number of small roles on television for the next two years, including a role in Tales of the Unexpected. He believed that his breakthrough had come when he was considered to replace Hervé Villechaize as the butler on the television series Fantasy Island, but the role went to actor Christopher Hewett instead.[7] He was unable to get an audition for the Disney film Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985) in Los Angeles, but was offered the role when he was visiting England. When he asked the film's director why he was not able to get an interview in Los Angeles, he was told that they felt the best actors were in Britain.[8]

After this, Fellowes decided to move back to England to further his career, and soon played a leading role in the 1987 TV series Knights of God as Brother Hugo, the "ambitious and ruthless second-in-command" of a futuristic military cult. Subsequently in 1991 he played Neville Marsham in Danny Boyle's For the Greater Good and Dr. Jobling in the 1994 BBC adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit. Other notable acting roles included the role of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996 BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North and the 2nd Duke of Richmond in the BBC drama serial Aristocrats. He portrayed George IV as the Prince Regent twice: first in the film The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) and the second in the 1996 adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's novel Sharpe's Regiment, as well as playing Major Dunnett in Sharpe's Rifles. He also played the part of Kilwillie on Monarch of the Glen. He appeared as the leader of the Hullabaloos in the television adaptation of Arthur Ransome's Coot Club, called Swallows and Amazons Forever!.

Aside from acting, he launched a new series on BBC One in 2004, Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder, which he wrote and introduced onscreen. He was the presenter of Never Mind the Full Stops, a panel-based game show broadcast on BBC Four from 2006 to 2007. He created the hugely successful and critically acclaimed period drama Downton Abbey for ITV1 in 2010.[9] He wrote a new Titanic miniseries that was shown on ITV1 in March–April 2012.[10]

In April 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Fellowes was at work on a new period drama series for NBC television, to be set in late 19th-century New York City, entitled The Gilded Age.[11] Fellowes suggested that a younger version of Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess character from his Downton Abbey drama might appear in the new series, saying: "Robert Crawley would be in his early teens, Cora would be a child. A young Violet [the Dowager Countess] could make an appearance."[11] As the title suggests, the series would be set during the time of America's so-called Gilded Age – the industrial boom era in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – and portray the upper echelons of New York's high society during that period.[11]

Production and writing for The Gilded Age was updated in January 2016 indicating that filming would start at the end of 2016. As reported in RadioTimes: "NBC's The Gilded Age is set to start shooting later this year, Fellowes tells RadioTimes.com. Asked whether he'd written the script yet, Fellowes replied, 'No I haven't, no. I'm doing that this year', before adding: 'And then hopefully shooting at the end of the year.'"[12]

In April 2016, it was announced that Fellowes would be the producer of The Gilded Age when it was reported that Fellowes is "about to begin writing The Gilded Age for NBC, a sort of American Downton about fortunes made and lost in late 19th century New York, which he will also produce."[13]

On 4 June 2016, Fellowes was asked by The Los Angeles Times, "Where does The Gilded Age stand?" Fellowes replied,

It stands really with me up to my neck in research, and I'm clearing the decks, so that when I start Gilded Age, I'm only doing Gilded Age. These people were extraordinary. You can see why they frightened the old guard, because they saw no boundaries. They wanted to build a palace, they built a palace. They wanted to buy a yacht, they bought a yacht. The old guard in New York weren't like that at all, and suddenly this whirlwind of couture descended on their heads. The newcomers redesigned being rich. They created a rich culture that we still have — people who are rich today are generally rich in a way that was established in America in the 1880s, '90s, 1900s. It was different from Europe. Something like Newport would never have happened in any other country, where you have huge palaces, and then about 20 yards away, another huge palace, and 20 yards beyond that another huge palace. In England right up to the 1930s, when people made money, they would buy an estate of 5,000 acres and they'd have to look after Nanny. The Americans of the 1880s and '90s didn't want too much of that.[14]

In August 2016, Fellowes indicated that his plans for The Gilded Age would not overlap substantially with the characters in Downton Abbey since most of them would have been children in those earlier "prequel" decades. Writing for Creative Screenwriting, Sam Roads asked Fellowes, "Will there be any connection between The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey?" to which Fellowes stated:

I can’t see it really. Someone asked if you would you see any of the Downton characters, but most of them would be children. They said that Violet wouldn’t be a child, and I replied that “Yes, I suppose you could see a younger Violet,” and this became a newspaper story. “Violet comes from Downton to appear in The Gilded Age!” It might be fun, but I doubt at the beginning, because I want it to be a new show with new people.[15]

Fellowes has written an adaptation of the novel Doctor Thorne by one of his favorite writers, Anthony Trollope.[16][17] The ITV adaptation aired on 6 March 2016.[18]

A report in early September 2018 stated that Fellowes had two projects underway, both in development: the Netflix series The English Game and The Gilded Age for NBC.[19] In May 2019, The Gilded Age moved to HBO.[20]

Films

Fellowes wrote the script for Gosford Park, which won the Oscar for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 2002.[21] In late 2005, Fellowes made his directorial début with the film Separate Lies, for which he won the award for Best Directorial Début from the National Board of Review.[22]

In 2009, Momentum Pictures and Sony Pictures released The Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt, for which Fellowes wrote the original screenplay. Other screenwriting credits include Vanity Fair, The Tourist and From Time to Time, which he also directed, and which won Best Picture at the Chicago Children's Film Festival, the Youth Jury Award at the Seattle International Film Festival, Best Picture at the Fiuggi Family Festival in Rome, and the Young Jury Award at Cinemagic in Belfast. His greatest commercial success was The Tourist, which grossed US$278 million worldwide, and for which he co-wrote the screenplay with Christopher McQuarrie and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.[23]

Other films in which Fellowes has appeared include Full Circle (1977), Priest of Love (1981), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), Goldeneye: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming (1989, as Noël Coward), Damage (1992), Shadowlands (1993), Jane Eyre (1996), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Regeneration (1997) and Place Vendôme (1998). He has continued his acting career while writing. He unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Master of Lake-town in the 2012–2014 The Hobbit series.[21]

Fellowes was the screenwriter and one of the producers for Downton Abbey, which was released in September 2019. Most members of the cast of the television programme appear in the movie version.[19][24]

Novels

Fellowes' novel Snobs was published in 2004. It focuses on the social nuances of the upper class and concerns the marriage of an upper middle-class girl to a peer. Snobs was a Sunday Times best-seller. In 2009 his novel Past Imperfect was published. Another Sunday Times best-seller, it deals with the débutante season of 1968, comparing the world then to the world of 2008. He also wrote, under the pseudonym Rebecca Greville, several romantic novels in the 1970s.[25] A period novel, Belgravia began broadcast, in 11 weekly episodes, from April 2016 and is available, via an app, in audio and text format.[26]

Theatre

As an actor, Fellowes began his acting career at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. He has appeared in several West End productions, including Samuel Taylor's A Touch of Spring, Alan Ayckbourn's Joking Apart and a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter. He appeared at the National Theatre in The Futurists, written by Dusty Hughes. As a writer, he penned the script to the West End musical Mary Poppins, produced by Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, which opened on Broadway in December 2006. He wrote the book for the musical School of Rock which opened at The Winter Garden on Broadway in December 2015. In May 2016 he was nominated for a Tony.[27]

Writing credits
List of television, film and theatre credits
Title Year Medium Notes
Gosford Park 2001 Film Winner of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
Mary Poppins 2004 Theatre Adapted from the novels by P. L. Travers and the 1964 film directed by Robert Stevenson; screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi
Vanity Fair 2004 Film Screenplay based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray
Julian Fellowes Investigates 2004 Television Writer and creator; also actor
Piccadilly Jim 2004 Film Screenplay based on the novel by P. G. Wodehouse
Separate Lies 2005 Film Screenplay based on the novel by Nigel Balchin; also director
The Young Victoria 2009 Film Original screenplay
From Time to Time 2009 Film Written by Fellowes, based on the novel by Lucy M. Boston; also director
The Tourist 2010 Film Screenplay polish
Downton Abbey 2010–15
(series 1–6)		 Television Creator, executive producer and writer (co-written episodes four and six of Season One with Shelagh Stephenson and Tina Pepler respectively)
Titanic 2012 Television Writer of the four-part ITV1 produced miniseries
Romeo and Juliet 2013 Film Screenplay; adapted from the play by William Shakespeare
School of Rock 2015 Theatre Book; adapted from the 2003 film of the same name by Mike White. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lyrics by Glenn Slater
Doctor Thorne 2016 Television Script; dramatization of the Anthony Trollope novel
Half a Sixpence 2016 Theatre Book; A new version based on H. G. Wells' novel Kipps with original musical by David Heneker and Beverly Cross. New music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, co-created by Cameron Mackintosh; at Chichester Festival Theatre
The Wind in the Willows 2016 Theatre Book; adapted from the novel of the same name by Kenneth Grahame. Music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Opening in Plymouth, Salford and Southampton prior to the West End.
Crooked House 2017 Film Screenplay; adapted from the novel of the same name by Agatha Christie
The Chaperone 2018 Film Screenplay
Downton Abbey 2019 Film Screenplay; continuation of 2010–2015 television series
Belgravia 2020 Television Creator and writer
The English Game 2020 Television Creator and writer
The Gilded Age TBA Television Creator and writer

Parliament

On 13 January 2011, Fellowes was elevated to the peerage, being created Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, of West Stafford in the County of Dorset,[28] and on the same day was introduced in the House of Lords,[29] where he sits on the Conservative Benches.[30]

Other interests

Fellowes is involved in a great deal of volunteer work.[31] He is Chairman of the RNIB appeal for Talking Books. He is a Vice-President of the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust[32] and Patron of a number of charities: the south-west branch of Age UK, Changing Faces, Living Paintings, the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity, Breast Cancer Haven and the Nursing Memorial Appeal. He also supports other causes, including charities concerned with the care of those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He recently opened the Dorset office of the south-west adoption charity, Families for Children.

Fellowes sits on the Appeal Council for the National Memorial Arboretum and is a Patron of Moviola, an initiative aimed at facilitating rural cinema screenings in the West Country.[33] He also sits on the Arts and Media Honours Committee.

Family
Fellowes, May 2014

On 28 April 1990, Fellowes married Lady Emma Joy Kitchener (born 1963), a Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, daughter of The Hon. Charles Kitchener (1920-1982). She is also a great-great-niece of Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener.[34] He proposed to her only 20 minutes after meeting her at a party, "having spent 19 minutes getting up the nerve". On 15 October 1998 the Fellowes family changed its surname from Fellowes to Kitchener-Fellowes.[35][36][37]

Fellowes publicly expressed his dissatisfaction that the proposals to change the rules of royal succession were not extended to hereditary peerages, which had they been would have allowed his wife to succeed her uncle as Countess Kitchener in her own right. As he put it "I find it ridiculous that, in 2011, a perfectly sentient adult woman has no rights of inheritance whatsoever when it comes to a hereditary title."[38] Instead, the title became extinct on her uncle's death because there were no male heirs.

On 9 May 2012, the Queen issued a Royal Warrant of Precedence granting Lady Fellowes the same rank and style as the daughter of an Earl, as would have been due to her if her late father had survived his brother and therefore succeeded to the earldom.[39]

Fellowes and his wife have one son, the Honourable Peregrine Charles Morant Kitchener-Fellowes (born 1991).[36]

Lord Fellowes was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset in 2009.[40] He is also Lord of the manor of Tattershall in Lincolnshire[41] and President of the Society of Dorset Men. Their main family home is in Dorset.[42]

His wife was story editor for Downton Abbey and works with charities, including the Nursing Memorial Appeal.[37]

Arms
Coat of arms of Julian Fellowes
Crest
A lion's head erased Or the erasure fimbriated Gules gorged with a collar dancettée Pean crowned with a mural coronet with three crenelations manifest Or masoned Sable.
Escutcheon
Azure a fess dancettée Erminois between three lions' heads erased Or each charged on the neck with a covered cup Gules.
Supporters
Dexter: a camel Or langued Gules plain gorged and with bridal trappings and line pendent reflexed over the back Azure. Sinister: a tortoise Azure langued Gules the shell Or.
Motto
Post Proelia Praemia (After battle comes reward)[43]
gollark: I'm all for not having so many commons, but it's probably much more effective to just breed them into the Ap.
gollark: I've somehow been managing to consistently miss each 5min egg drop by about 30 seconds for the past half-hour.
gollark: Just put it in more hatcheries.
gollark: Ah.
gollark: That's some cheatiness right there!

See also

References
  1. Segrave, Elisa (30 April 1999). "Obituary: Peregrine Fellowes". The Independent. Retrieved 23 January 2013.
  2. Carrie de Silva, A Short History of Agricultural Education and Research, Harper Adams University, (2015) pps. 96–97
  3. Walker, Tim (9 May 2013). "Downton Abbey Creator's Brother Comes Out Fighting with New Play". The Daily Telegraph.
  4. (18 December 2011). "Julian Fellowes Baron Fellowes of West Stafford". BBC Radio 4; retrieved 27 August 2013.
  5. "Time and place: Not quite Gosford Park – Julian Fellowes". Louisejohncox.com. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  6. Plante, Robert Peston, Lynda La (7 May 2013). "You may have a first-class degree – but Lord Winston doesn't want you". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  7. Witchel, Alex (8 September 2011). "Behind the Scenes With the Creator of 'Downton Abbey'". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 14 September 2011.
  8. "Julian Fellowes Interview". YouTube. Emmy TV Legends. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
  9. Downton Abbey, Itv.com; accessed 13 June 2015.
  10. Starr, Michael (22 March 2011). "Titanic Coming to TV". New York Post.
  11. Alex Ritman – "Downton Abbey's Dowager Countess May Appear in Julian Fellowes' New NBC Drama; 'The Gilded Age' could feature a younger version of the character, said Fellowes", The Hollywood Reporter, April 6, 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-10
  12. "Julian Fellowes' NBC period drama The Gilded Age will start filming this year", RadioTimes.com, 21 January 2016.
  13. Profile, Telegraph.co.uk, 10 April 2016.
  14. Interview with Julian Fellowes, Latimes.com, June 4, 2016.
  15. Sam Roads. Interview with Julian Fellowes, CreativeScreenwriting.com, 11 August 2016.
  16. Carolyn Kellogg (28 April 2015). "'Downton Abbey' creator Julian Fellowes takes on Trollope for TV". LA Times. Calling himself a “lifetime devotee of Trollope,” Fellowes explained that he is his “favorite among the great 19th century English novelists and certainly the strongest influence over my work that I am conscious of.” Fellowes “could not be more delighted” to adapt Doctor Thorne.
  17. Caitlin Brody (19 May 2016). "Doctor Thorne: Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes talks new series". Entertainment Weekly. Trollope is one of my favorite writers of all time. His emotional position is very similar to my own in that nobody is all good or all bad. His characters have a mixture of ruthlessness and toughness with inner decency. I’ve always wanted to see more of him on television, instead of it always being Jane Austen or Charles Dickens.
  18. Radford, Ceri (6 March 2016). "Doctor Thorne review: Fellowes and Trollope is a happy marriage". Telegraph Online. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  19. "The Downton Abbey Movie Has Officially Started Filming". Cinemablend. 1 September 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  20. "'The Gilded Age': Julian Fellowes' 19th Century Drama Jumps to HBO from NBC". IndieWire. 2 May 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  21. Gilbert, Matthew (5 January 2013). "Julian Fellowes and 'Downton Abbey'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  22. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 January 2013. Retrieved 2012-12-19.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  23. "The Tourist". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  24. "'Downton Abbey' Movie Is on the Way". nytimes.com. The New York Times. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  25. "Julian Fellowes profile". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  26. Smith, Saphora (14 April 2016). "The Telegraph Belgravia". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  27. "Andrew Lloyd Webber's School of Rock Will Shake Up Broadway Next Fall". Playbill. 18 December 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  28. "No. 59672". The London Gazette. 17 January 2011. p. 615.
  29. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 2012-02-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  30. Sweney, Mark (19 November 2010). "Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to become Tory peer". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  31. https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-fellowes-of-west-stafford/4208, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford
  32. "Weldmar Hospicecare Trust – Caring for Dorset". Weld-hospice.org.uk. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  33. "Moviola News and Events". Moviola. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  34. Mosley, Charles (ed.) (2003). Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 107th edn. London: Burke's Peerage & Gentry Ltd. p. 2207 (KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM AND OF BROOME, E). ISBN 0-9711966-2-1.
  35. "No. 55307". The London Gazette. 10 November 1998. p. 12197.
  36. Lynn, Barber (28 November 2004). "Jolly good Fellowes". The Observer. London, UK. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
  37. Fellowes, Julian (December 2012). "The Most Happy Fellowes". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  38. Singh, Anita. "Julian Fellowes: inheritance laws denying my wife a title are outrageous". Telegraph. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  39. "London Gazette". 23 May 2012. p. 9975.
  40. "No. 58757". The London Gazette. 7 July 2008. p. 10149.
  41. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-10.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  42. Savill, Richard (30 August 2002). "Writer buys his own Gosford Park". Telegraph. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  43. Zhong, Raymond (3 February 2013). "The Anti-Snobbery of 'Downton Abbey'". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 May 2015.

Further reading
Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by
The Lord Wasserman		 Gentlemen
Baron Fellowes of West Stafford 		Followed by
The Lord Loomba
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