Peter Rankin

As a teenager, Peter Rankin skipped games to watch rehearsals of Joan Littlewood's Edinburgh Festival production of Henry IV. On leaving school, he assisted her both at Stratford East and in Paris. Her last production was his first play, So You Want to be in Pictures, a satire on film-making. For 21 years, he worked alongside the writer/director Ken Hill, one of Joan's "children" and together, they came up with a series of action/adventure shows, the best known being The Original Phantom of the...See more

As a teenager, Peter Rankin skipped games to watch rehearsals of Joan Littlewood's Edinburgh Festival production of Henry IV. On leaving school, he assisted her both at Stratford East and in Paris. Her last production was his first play, So You Want to be in Pictures, a satire on film-making. For 21 years, he worked alongside the writer/director Ken Hill, one of Joan's "children" and together, they came up with a series of action/adventure shows, the best known being The Original Phantom of the Opera and The Invisible Man. During that time, Joan came to live in Peter's flat where they worked on two books together, Milady Vine, the biography of the winemaker, Philippe de Rothschild, and Joan's Book, her autobiography. Peter has also worked on the autobiographies of Victor Spinetti and the film director, Lewis Gilbert. See less