Anthony Minghella (6 January 1954 – 18 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The English Patient (1996). In addition, he received three more Academy Award nominations; he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for both The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and was posthumously nominated for Best Picture for The Reader (2008), as a co-producer. Minghella was born in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England that is a popular holiday resort. His family are well known on the Island, where they ran a café in Ryde until the 1980s and have run an eponymous business making and selling Italian-style ice cream since the 1950s. His parents were Edoardo Minghella (an Italian immigrant) and Leeds-born Gloria Alberta (née Arcari). His mother's ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in the Lazio region of central Italy. He was one of five children, a sister being Loretta Minghella. Minghella attended St. Mary's Catholic Primary School, Ryde, Sandown Grammar School, and St John's College, Portsmouth. Early interests suggested a possible career as a musician, with Minghella playing keyboards with local bands Earthlight and Dancer. The latter recorded an album Tales of the Riverbank in 1972 although it was not released until 2001. He attended the University of Hull, studying Drama. As an undergraduate he had arrived at university with an EMI contract for the band in which he sang and played keyboard; while there writing words and music for a musical entitled Mobius the Stripper. After several years of teaching at the same university (Samuel Beckett and medieval theatre), he abandoned his pursuit of a PhD to work for the BBC. Minghella met his first wife, Yvonne Miller, when they were students. They had one daughter, Hannah, who worked as a production assistant on The Talented Mr. Ripley, and was President of Sony Pictures Animationfor a time before being named President of Production of Columbia Pictures. Minghella and his first wife eventually divorced. In 1985, Minghella married Hong Kong–born choreographer and dancer Carolyn Jane Choa. They had one son, Max, who is an actor. Minghella's younger brother, Dominic Minghella, is the creator of the popular British television series Robin Hood and Doc Martin, and a scriptwriter. His sister Loretta is Director of Christian Aid, his sister Edana participated in a jazz event on the Isle of Wight, and his nephew Dante is one of the participants in Channel 4's Child Genius series. Minghella was a fan of Portsmouth F.C. and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Hallowed Be Thy Game. His home had two double bedrooms dedicated to the display of Portsmouth memorabilia dating back to the club's founding in 1898. Minghella died of a haemorrhage on 18 March 2008 in Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, following an operation the previous week to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck.

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