{{Short description|British-born American film producer (1938–2025)}} {{Unreliable sources|imdb=yes|date=October 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Michael John Dryhurst | birth_date = March 22 1938 | birth_place = Kingsbury, London, U.K. | death_date = September 9 2025 | death_place = Hot Springs, Arkansas, U.S. | occupation = {{ubl|Film producer|Director|Assistant Director|Second Unit Director|Author|Playwright}} | years_active = 1955 - 2022 | spouse = Karen Gordon (married 1993) | father = Edward Dryhurst | awards = Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (co-recipient) }} '''Michael John Dryhurst''' (March 22, 1938 – September 9, 2025) was a British-born American film producer, director, assistant director, second unit director, and author known for his work on the films ''Superman'', ''Excalibur'', ''Never Say Never Again'', ''The Emerald Forest'', ''Hope and Glory'', and ''Hudson Hawk''.<ref name="Dishongh">{{cite news |last1=Dishongh |first1=Kimberly |title=He switched gears from bus driver to movie man |access-date=27 September 2025 |url=https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2022/may/01/he-switched-gears-from-bus-driver-to-movie-man/ |work=Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette |date=1 May 2022}}</ref><ref name="IMDb">{{Cite web |title=Michael Dryhurst {{!}} Second Unit Director or Assistant Director, Producer, Camera and Electrical Department |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0238751/ |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}}</ref> He was the son of film director and producer Edward Dryhurst, worked on many films by filmmaker John Boorman, and wrote the novel ''Check the Gate!'' in 2022.<ref name="Dishongh" /> He also wrote two books about buses and trams, and wrote many articles on historic buses. <ref name="Goodreads">{{Cite web |title=Michael Dryhurst |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16392580.Michael_Dryhurst |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref><ref name="LegacyObit">{{Cite web |title=Michael John Dryhurst Obituary (2025) - Hot Springs Village, AR - Caruth Village Funeral Home |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/michael-dryhurst-obituary?id=59735642 |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=Legacy.com}}</ref> In 1988, he was the co-recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his work as a producer of the film ''Hope and Glory''.<ref name="Dishongh" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=1 April 2025 |title=Hope & Glory |url=https://alpha.creativecirclecdn.com/hotsprings/files/20250327-161140-947-HSV%20Life%20April%202025.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com |work=Hot Springs Village Voice |pages=17}}</ref><ref name="BFI">{{Cite web |date=2021-07-01 |title=Hope and Glory |url=https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/big%20screen%20classics/2021/07/01/hope-and-glory/ |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=BFI Southbank Programme Notes |language=en}}</ref> He mostly retired from working on films in 1991, and spent his retirement in Ireland and America.<ref name="IMDb" /><ref name="Dishongh" /> He died on September 9, 2025, at the age of 87.<ref name="LegacyObit" />
== Background and early life == Dryhurst was born on March 22, 1938, in London, England,<ref name="LegacyObit" /> to Edward Dryhurst (1904 - 1989),<ref>{{Cite web |title=The British Entertainment History Project {{!}} Edward Dryhurst {{!}} |url=https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/edward-dryhurst |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=historyproject.org.uk}}</ref> a film director and producer, and May Roberts, who had been a screen extra, and had a brother named Christopher<ref name="LegacyObit" /> who was an assistant film director.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}} He remembered the Blitz bombings of World War II from when he was a young child.<ref name="Dishongh" /> He attended British boarding schools for his education.<ref name="Dishongh" /> His father worked on many British films from the 1920s through the 50s,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Edward Dryhurst {{!}} Movies and Filmography |url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/edward-dryhurst-an223252/filmography |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=AllMovie |language=en}}</ref> and in 1955, at the age of 17, after his father had gotten into too much debt to pay for his school anymore, Michael himself entered the film industry as a clapper loader<ref name="Dishongh" /> for the film ''The Dynamiter'', and subsequently worked as clapper-loader on the films ''Hell Drivers'' and ''A Night to Remember'', but went uncredited for them.<ref name="IMDb" /> He later likened these experiences to an "on-the-job film school" .<ref name="Dishongh" />
[[File:FUF63 Brighton & Hove AEC Regent with Weymann bodywork.jpg|thumb|Michael's first preserved bus, Brighton Corporation Weymann bodied AEC Regent I FUF 63, at the Showbus rally in September 2022]] From the age of eight, Michael developed an obsession with buses and transportation systems, which he maintained throughout his whole life as a bus enthusiast. Michael was a regular contributor to ''Buses Illustrated'' magazine (now named ''Buses''), writing his first letters to the magazine in 1959 to provide corrections for an article about trolleybuses in Brighton, where the Dryhurst family moved to in 1947 and lived in three consecutive homes. At the age of 21, Michael became the columnist for the magazine's 'Look in on London' column under the pen name VH Darling, Michael's girlfriend at the time. Michael adopted the pen name as a compromise to ''Buses Illustrated'' publisher Ian Allan, who held a monopoly in publishing transport enthusiast books through Ian Allan Publishing, vetoing his appointment as Allan felt his monopoly was threatened by Michael and friend Ken Blacker's new publishing company, Dryhurst Publications, which was advertising in the magazine.<ref name="BusesObit">{{cite magazine |title=Movie man who loved buses |magazine=Buses |issue=848 |pages=52-55 |date=16 October 2025 |location=Stamford |publisher=Key Publishing}}</ref>
Michael was an early figure in bus preservation in the United Kingdom, first owning a share of a preserved bus in 1959 before owning a car. In 1965, Michael bought a 1939 Brighton Corporation Weymann bodied AEC Regent I double-decker bus, registered FUF 63 and given Brighton Corporation fleet number 63, for restoration as one of the first double-decker buses bought for preservation by a private individual. Michael kept FUF 63 until he moved to America, where he decided to work primarily in the film industry. Throughout his life, he purchased six other buses from around the world, with his most notable purchase being that of 1939 London Transport AEC Regent III RT prototype RT1 (registered EYK 396), which he had repatriated to the United Kingdom in 1986 for preservation by the London Bus Museum.<ref name="BusesObit" /><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Hudspith |first1=Geoff |title=Peter Gomm – a bit more of the story |url=https://www.londonbusmuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Newsletter-177.pdf |magazine=Friends of Classic London Buses of the Fifties |publisher=London Bus Museum |access-date=24 October 2025 |issue=177 |page=15 |date=May 2021}}</ref>
== Career ==
=== Assistant director (1964 - 1980) === In the 1960s Dryhurst began working as second assistant director on several low-budget British films, and still going uncredited. In 1966 he began working as a first assistant director,<ref name="IMDb" /> and in 1967 worked on the film ''The Naked Runner'', starring Frank Sinatra, which he said was his "breakthrough" and put him in higher demand.<ref name="Dishongh" /> All in all between 1966 and 1979 he was the assistant director on 23 films, including several low-budget films, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968)'', ''The Night Digger (1971)'', ''All Creatures Great and Small (1975)'', ''The Big Sleep (1978)'', ''Superman (1978)'', and ''The Lady Vanishes (1979)''. On Superman he also served as the blue screen unit director, meaning he was responsible for directing the scenes in which Superman flies. In 1980, he produced and directed the television film ''The Hard Way'', though was never admitted to a film director's guild.<ref name="IMDb" /> His favorite actor to work with was Ava Gardner.<ref name="Dishongh" />
=== Work as film producer and collaborations with John Boorman (1981 - 1991) === In 1981 he began his decade-long professional collaboration with filmmaker John Boorman, when he served as associate producer on the film ''Excalibur (1981)''. He subsequently worked with Boorman on the films ''The Emerald Forest (1985, as co-producer)'', and ''Hope and Glory (1987, as co-producer and second unit director)''.<ref name="IMDb" /> John Boorman described Dryhurst as a trusted colleague, and an accomplished photographer, and admired his ability to remain calm and controlled even when faced with major difficulties during production, such as during the tumultuous making of ''The Emerald Forest''. Dryhurst served as co-producer on the film, and was sent by Boorman to scout locations for the film in the Brazilian rainforest, making surveys of various possible filming locations, during the spring of 1983, and spent a few months there. He selected Belém to be the headquarters of production and in June Boorman came out and reviewed the locations with him, and Dryhurst's then-wife, a makeup artist named Anna, came along. During their scouting trip they were briefly stranded in rural Brazil after missing their plane causing them to have to stay with a man by the name of Senhor Calixto, and they spent a lot of time floating down rivers, though Dryhurst could not swim. Dryhurst also helped Boorman hire people for the film, and was involved in the film throughout all of production.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boorman |first=John |title=Money Into Light |date=1985 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=0-571-13731-8 |location=London |pages=23, 24, 39, 44, 46, 49, 69, 70, 121, 181, 185 |language=en}}</ref>
He then worked on Boorman's personal film ''Hope and Glory'', playing a similar role in production.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boorman |first=John |title=Hope and Glory |date=1987 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=0-571-14983-9 |location=London |language=en}}</ref> The film was critically acclaimed<ref name="BFI" /> and won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy the following year, which Dryhurst co-received as he was a producer on the film. He claimed to have used the award as a bookend.<ref name="Dishongh" /> He then served as a co-producer of the 1991 film ''Hudson Hawk'' starring Bruce Willis, and then effectively retired, only working on a few other films intermittently in subsequent years.<ref name="IMDb" />
== Later life and death == In 1993, he married Karen Gordon,<ref name="Dishongh" /> an American film production manager who also worked on the film ''Hudson Hawk'', and served as production accountant on the films ''Steel Magnolias (1989)'' and ''Schindler's List (1993)''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Karen Gordon {{!}} Additional Crew, Production Manager |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0330355/ |access-date=2025-10-13 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}}</ref> They lived in Ireland for a while before settling in California.<ref name="Dishongh" /> Dryhurst became a US citizen in 1993.<ref name="LegacyObit" /> He served as producer of the 2006 film ''Year'', and also played a character named Morris in the film, his only film acting role. He also served as a producer on the films ''Windfall (1998)'', and ''Chores (2006)'', his last film credit.<ref name="IMDb" /> During this time, he also continued regular correspondence to ''Buses'' magazine, occasionally having accounts published of long-distance bus trips,<ref name="BusesObit" /> and wrote a series of one-act plays.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 7, 2022 |title=Dryhurst Speaks |work=Hot Springs Village Voice |pages=7B}}</ref>
{{multiple image | width = thumb | direction = vertical | image1 = 2014 LBPT Spring rally (13828624065).jpg | image2 = Ensignbus RTL1014 on Route X55, Lakeside Bus Station (15952643756).jpg | footer = RT1 and RTL1014, the two London buses Michael helped repatriate back to the United Kingdom }} In columns for ''Buses'', he made UK-based enthusiasts aware of the existence of former London Transport AEC Regent III RTs and an RTL-type Leyland Titan, numbered RTL1014 and originally registered KYY 712, run by Unitrans at the University of California, Davis. Michael made friends with Liverpudlian expat and Unitrans fleet engineer Wally Mellor, who later gave him right of first refusal of ownership of RTL1014 in 2014 after it was withdrawn from the Unitrans fleet for failing California emission standards; unable to take ownership of it for himself while living in Ireland at the age of 73, Michael instead was responsible for the repatriation of RTL1014 back to the United Kingdom for continued operation and preservation by the Newman family, then the owners of bus dealership and exporter Ensignbus of Purfleet.<ref name="BusesObit" />
Michael and Karen eventually settled in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. In 2022 he published his first and only novel, ''Check the Gate! Movie-Making in the Amazon While Dodging Alligators in Hollywood'', which is a fictionalized re-telling of his experiences making ''The Emerald Forest'', centering around a film producer making a film in the Amazon who accidentally gets involved with a drug cartel.<ref name="Dishongh" /> He also wrote at least two books about the history of London buses and trams.<ref name="Goodreads" /> He died on September 9, 2025, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at the age of 87. His funeral was held in Hot Springs Village at Caruth Village Funeral Home on September 19, 2025.<ref name="LegacyObit" />
== Filmography == <ref name="IMDb" /> {| class="wikitable" |+ !Year !Title !Role |- |1956 |The Dynamiter |Clapper-loader |- |1957 |Hell Drivers |Clapper-loader |- |1958 |A Night to Remember |Clapper-loader |- |1964 |Do You Know This Voice? |2nd Asst. Director |- |1964 |Night Train to Paris |2nd Asst. Director |- |1964 |The Earth Dies Screaming |2nd Asst. Director |- |1964 |Man With Two Faces |2nd Asst. Director |- |1965 |Othello |2nd Asst. Director |- |1965 |Up Jumped A Swagman |2nd Asst. Director |- |1965 |The Murder Game |2nd Asst. Director |- |1966 |The Yellow Hat |Asst. Director |- |1967 |The Naked Runner |Asst. Director |- |1967 |I'll Never Forget Whats'isname |Asst. Director |- |1968 |Up The Junction |Asst. Director |- |1968 |The Long Day's Dying |Asst. Director |- |1968 |A Midsummer Night's Dream |Asst. Director |- |1969 |Hannibal Brooks |Asst. Director |- |1970 |The Games |Asst. Director |- |1970 |The Rise & Rise of Michael Rimmer |Asst. Director |- |1971 |Lawman |Asst. Director |- |1971 |The Night Digger |Asst. Director |- |1971 |The Nightcomers |Asst. Director |- |1972 |Something to Hide |Asst. Director |- |1972 |Pulp |Asst. Director |- |1972 |Baffled (TV Film) |Asst. Director |- |1973 |The House in Nightmare Park |Asst. Director |- |1973 |Scorpio |Asst. Director |- |1974 |The Terminal Man |Assoc. Producer |- |1975 |All Creatures Great and Small |Asst. Director |- |1977 |Exorcist II: Heretic |Special Thanks |- |1978 |The Big Sleep |Asst. Director |- |1978 |Superman |Asst. Director & Blue Screen Unit Director |- |1979 |The Lady Vanishes |Asst. Director |- |1980 |The Hard Way (TV Film) |Director & Producer |- |1981 |Excalibur |Assoc. Producer |- |1982 |Amityville II: The Possession |Production Supervisor |- |1983 |Superman III |Production Supervisor |- |1983 |Never Say Never Again |Assoc. Producer |- |1985 |The Emerald Forest |Co-Producer |- |1986 |Harem (TV Film) |Producer |- |1987 |Hope and Glory |Co-Producer & Second Unit Director |- |1991 |Hudson Hawk |Co-Producer |- |1996 |Moll Flanders |Special Thanks |- |1998 |Windfall |Producer |- |2006 |Year |Producer & Actor |- |2006 |Chores |Supervising Producer |}
== Bibliography == <ref name="Goodreads" />
*{{Cite book |last=Dryhurst |first=Michael |title=London Bus and Tram Album: 2nd Series |date=1979 |location=Worthing |publisher=Littlehampton Book Services Ltd |isbn=0711009856}}
*{{cite book |last=Dryhurst |first=Michael |title=Bus Portfolio No 2: London Trolleybuses |date=1987 |publisher=DPR Marketing & Sales |isbn=9780950991047}}
*{{cite book |last=Dryhurst |first=Michael |title=Check the Gate! Making Movies in the Amazon While Dodging Alligators in Hollywood |date=2022 |isbn=9798614816568}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb name|nm0238751}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dryhurst, Michael}} Category:1938 births Category:2025 deaths Category:Film producers from Arkansas