Max Morgan Witts
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Max Morgan-Witts (born 27 September 1931) is a British producer, director and author of Canadian origin.


Biography

Morgan-Witts was a Director/Producer at
Granada TV ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire on weekdays only, as ABC Weekend Television was its ...
which he joined on 9 January 1956. He directed television shows for Granada, including ''
The Army Game ''The Army Game'' is a British television sitcom that aired on ITV from 19 June 1957 to 20 June 1961. It was the first ITV sitcom and was made by Granada, and created by Sid Colin. It follows the exploits of Hut 29, a dysfunctional group of ...
'', which was the UK's No. 1 television show during each of the approximately 50 episodes he directed. Afterwards Morgan-Witts directed 15 of the earliest episodes of ''
Coronation Street ''Coronation Street'' (colloquially referred to as ''Corrie'') is a British television soap opera created by ITV Granada, Granada Television and shown on ITV (TV network), ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres on a cobbled, terraced ...
'' (between July & August 1961 and January and April 1963), which followed ''The Army Game'' as Britain's top-rated TV show. After Granada TV, Morgan-Witts moved to BBC TV, as a producer and executive producer in the Science & Features Department. He was editor and executive producer of '' Tomorrow's World'', a live, weekly, popular science programme. He was responsible for 14 one-hour episodes of ''The British Empire'', a historical documentary series. It was filmed in 40 countries and at the time was the most expensive and ambitious documentary series the BBC had made. He was Director and Producer of many one-hour film documentaries made for peak time viewing on
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
, most of which he wrote himself but for one of which he hired Gordon Thomas. This was the beginning of their writing partnership. Morgan-Witts wrote 10 non-fiction books with Thomas, four of which were made into feature films, includin
''Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb''
which was first a four-hour NBC special and then re-cut as a feature. Another was ''
Voyage of the Damned ''Voyage of the Damned'' is a 1976 drama (film and television), drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with an Ensemble cast, all-star cast featuring Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Max von Sydow, James Mason, Lynne Frederick and Malco ...
'', a highly rated feature film which is frequently repeated on TV worldwide. Morgan-Witts has been awarded the
Edgar Allan Poe Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor ...
and is a Knight of Mark Twain. Now retired, Morgan-Witts and his wife, Pauline, live in London. They have two children, Paul and Michele, and four grandchildren.


Bibliography

with Gordon Thomas *''The Day the World Ended'' (1969) – a factual novel about the eruption of
Mount Pelée Mount Pelée or Mont Pelée ( ; , ; ), meaning "bald mountain" or "peeled mountain" in French, is an active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island and French overseas department in the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc of the Caribbean ...
in 1902 and the basis for the 1980 film '' When Time Ran Out...'' *''The San Francisco Earthquake'' (1971) *''Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle'' (1972) *''Voyage of the Damned'' (1974) *''Guernica: The Crucible of World War II'' (1975) *''Ruin from the Air: The Enola Gay's Atomic Mission to Hiroshima'' (1977) *''The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929'' (1979) *''Pontiff'' (1983) *''Anatomy of an Epidemic: The True Story of a Town, a Hotel, a Silent Killer, and a Medical Detection Team'' (1984) *''The Year of Armageddon: The Pope and the Bomb'' (1984)


Sources

Source of information is from historic records and from the author's biographical notes


External links

*
Futerman, Rose & Associates Literary AgentsNew York TimesThree Dot blogUniversity California, Berkeley, The Books of the Century: 1970-1979
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan-Witts, Max British television directors British non-fiction writers Edgar Award winners Living people 1931 births British male writers British male non-fiction writers Canadian emigrants to England