Michael Gill

Who was Michael Gill?

George Michael Gill was an English television producer and television director responsible for creating 'ground-breaking' documentaries for the BBC.

He was born in Winchester, Hampshire but was brought up in Canterbury. He contracted tuberculosis as a child which disrupted his education severely including four years in a spinal chair. He served in the RAF in Intelligence during the war. One of his most memorable debriefings was interrogating a German who had survived a 20,000 ft fall over the Netherlands without his parachute opening.

After the war he studied Philosophy and Psychology at Edinburgh University. After a period as a sub-editor and arts reviewer on The Scotsman, he joined the BBC. He worked first on radio but soon moved to television.

He is chiefly remembered for Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark and Alistair Cooke's America. Although the idea for Civilisation and its presenter, Kenneth Clark, were given to Gill, 'America' and its presenter were entirely Gill's idea. In total Gill made more than 150 films for television and the cinema and won more than 40 major international awards.