Lewis Gilbert CBE (6 March 1920 – 23 February 2018) was an English film director, producer and screenwriter who directed more than 40 films during six decades; among them such varied titles as Reach for the Sky (1956), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Alfie (1966), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989), as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)^[1] and Moonraker (1979).

Lewis Gilbert was born as Louis Laurie Isaacs in Clapton, London,^[2] to a second-generation family of music hall performers,^[3] and spent his early years travelling with his parents, Ada (Griver), who was of Jewish descent,^[4] and George Gilbert, and watching the shows from the wings.^[5] He first performed on stage at the age of five, when asked to drive a trick car around the stage. This pleased the audience, so this became the finale of his parents' act. When travelling on trains, his parents frequently hid him in the luggage rack, to avoid paying a fare for him. His father contracted tuberculosis as a young man and died aged 34, when Gilbert was seven.

Gilbert was a child actor in the 1920s and 1930s, but soon after the death of his father, his mother was unable to financially support him, while she was a film extra, and this led to Gilbert being taken in by his aunt Daisy Gilbert, with frequent visits from his mother.

Daisy Gilbert was a known Vaudeville performer in the duo “The Dancing Gilbert Sisters”, who performed at venues such as the Hackney Empire, and Tivoli in Australia. And it was Daisy Gilbert’s husband Harry Rosen, who was a known retailer at the time, who helped Gilbert financially when he wanted to become a film director in the early stages of his career.

During this time Gilbert had many difficulties with his formal education, but In 1933, at the age of 13, he had a role in Victor Hanbury and John Stafford's Dick Turpin, and at age 17 a small uncredited role in The Divorce of Lady X (1938) opposite Laurence Olivier.

It was Daisy Gilbert, who helped him to get the role in The Divorce of Lady X, with the intention that Gilbert would be credited for it.

Later Alexander Korda offered to send him to RADA, but Gilbert chose to study direction instead, assisting Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939).^[3]

When the Second World War started, he joined the Royal Air Force's film unit, where he worked on various documentary films. He was eventually seconded to the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces, where his commanding officer was William Keighley, an American film director, who allowed Gilbert to take on much of his film-making work.

After the war, he continued to write and direct documentary shorts for Gaumont British, before entering low budget feature film production.^[3] Gilbert made his name as a director in the 1950s and 1960s with a series of successful films, often working as the film's writer and producer as well. These films were often based on true stories from the Second World War. Examples include Reach for the Sky (1956) (based on the life of air ace Douglas Bader), Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) (the story of SOE agent Violette Szabo) and Sink the Bismarck! (1960).^[6]

Gilbert was married to Hylda Tafler for 53 years, until her death in June 2005. They had a son, Stephen, and raised another, John, hers from a prior relationship.^[21]

All My Flashbacks: The Autobiography of Lewis Gilbert, Sixty Years a Film Director was published by Reynolds & Hearn in 2010.^[22]

Gilbert died at home in Monaco on 23 February 2018, 11 days shy of his 98th birthday.^[23][24]