Director Peter Yates R.I.P.

Peter Yates, who directed the classic Steve McQueen movie Bullitt (1968) passed Sunday, 9 January 2010.

Peter Yates was born in Aldershot, Hampshire on 24 July 1929. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He acted for a time, as well as drove a race car and managed other race car drivers. He worked as a dubbing editor on foreign films before serving as assistant director on The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958). He would serve as an assistant director or second unit director on such films as A Touch of Larceny (1959), Sons and Lovers (1960), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and A Taste of Honey (1961).

He made his directorial debut with Summer Holiday in 1963 and then directed One Way Pendulum (1964). Mr. Yates then moved into directing television, including episodes of The Saint and Danger Man. He returned to movies with Robbery (1967), then directed Bullitt (1968). The movie would be a box office success and would set the course for action movies for the next ten years. He would go onto direct Murphy's War (1971), The Hot Rock (1972), Mother, Jugs, and Speed (1976), The Deep (1977), Eyewitness (1981), An Innocent Man (1989), and Run of the Country (1995). His last movie was Curtain Call (1998).