Versatile film craftsman Mike Newell alternated between London and Hollywood, from film to TV, before securing his reputation as a leading British filmmaker in the early 1990s. He learned his craft as a production trainee at Granada Television after graduating in English from Cambridge and went on to direct numerous plays for TV including "Ready When You Are Mr. McGill" (1976), a comedy about a TV extra who panics when given two lines to speak. Newell made his feature debut stateside with "The Awakening" (1980), a moth-eaten mummy flick adapted from a Bram Stoker novel and starring the
