Career: Attenborough's film debut was 1942's In Which We Serve, playing a cowardly sailor; in real life, he served with the RAF's Film Unit, sustaining permanent ear damage in the process. He became a post-war star thanks to hits such as Brighton Rock (1947),The Great Escape (1963), and I'm All Right Jack (1959). He and Bryan Forbes formed a production company in the early 1960s, which made films including The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961). Attenborough directed his first film, Oh! What a Lovely War, in 1969, won an Oscar for Gandhi in 1982, and also directed the acclaimed movies A Bridge Too Far (1977), Chaplin (1992) and Shadowlands (1993). He returned to acting in the 1990s to appear in Jurassic Park (1993), Miracle on 34th Street (1994), and Elizabeth (1998). He was knighted in 1976 and made a life peer in 1993. He died on August 24, 2014, at the age of 90.