Anthony Asquith (1902-1968) was the son of Herbert Asquith, who became Prime Minister in 1908, and his wife Margot, a celebrated society figure. Aged six, he moved to his new family home in 10 Downing Street. Family friend, the actor Jonathan Cecil describes this upbringing: “He grew up in this ultra-sophisticated world where everyone was worldly and rich”.
In part perhaps to escape from this conventional upbringing and high-powered family, Asquith turned to film. Film journalist Geoffrey Macnab explains: “Passionate about cinema since his student days [after Winchester he went to Oxford], Asquith was steeped in the work of the Soviet masters, Pudovkin and Eisenstein, and of the German expressionist film-makers. He had met Proust. He was a brilliant musician … With such a background, it was little wonder his career quickly blossomed.”
Asquith (nick-named Puffin for his bird-like features) was certainly unconventional – perhaps the Wykehamist in him shining through. Despite his background, he was the first British director to join a trade union, active in improving cinema and television technicians’ pay and conditions. He dressed down somewhat too: “He dressed like one of the electricians. If anything, he was less well groomed,” one actress recalled. And his sexuality – he was, according to Cecil, a “repressed homosexual” – also marked him as different, even in cinematographic circles.
Through the 20s, 30s and 40s, Asquith made a great number of highly-acclaimed films, including Shooting Stars (1927), Pygmalion (1938), The Way to the Stars (1945), The Winslow Boy (1948), The Browning Version (1951), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). In the late silent era, he was considered an equal of Hitchcock’s.
However, he also struggled with alcoholism, drinking dangerously heavily. Cecil recalls that even in a very tough rehab clinic, his Wykehamical manners were still very much in evidence. “They’d bring him a bowl of whisky with vinegar in it so it would make him nauseous. They had all these fighting drunks, cursing and being held down, and they’d bring this bowl of revolting muck for him to drink and he’d say, ‘Oh, my dear … that’s so kind.’ ”
After his premature death in 1968, his father’s later equivalent, Harold Wilson, described him as “a unique and indispensable figure in the British cinema”. His great-niece, Helena Bonham-Carter, maintains the family connection to the cinema.