It is with great sadness that Fanderson has learned of the death of David Elliott on November 10th at the age of 92. David was one of the first recruits to AP films when Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis were contracted by Roberta Leigh to produce The Adventures Of Twizzle in 1957. His first encounter with Gerry Anderson came after David had completed his National Service and had recommenced his career in film editing, working in the cutting rooms of a documentary film company at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Gerry, two years older and slightly more advanced in his career in film editing, was working in the same studio complex and the two became friends. Gerry had David employed to assist him on two films he was working on, Appointment In London and They Who Dare.
By 1957 David had gained considerable experience in British film productions, moving up to being First Assistant Editor and the Sound Editor on British and American productions made at Shepperton and Borehamwood. Gerry asked him to join the AP Films team making The Adventures Of Twizzle at Islet Park in Maidenhead. Although this was a considerably smaller production than David had been working on, it represented regular work with more responsibility, as David was employed as the series’ Film Editor.
By the time The Adventures Of Twizzle was being made two years later AP Films had graduated to creating their own series, and were making their puppet Western series for Granada Television at larger studio premises on Ipswich Road on the Slough Trading Estate. Gerry Anderson had directed every episode of AP Films’ first two series, but it had become clear during production of Four Feather Falls that this had become too much work. David Elliott was asked to move from editing to directing, at first alternating episodes with Gerry, with episode 14, entitled Trapped, being his first episode. This was a logical move, as editors are versed in the grammar of filmmaking and know the nuts and bolts of which shots are needed to make a scene work. It’s notable that the third member of the Four Feather Falls directorial roster, Alan Pattillo, was another recruit from the cutting room.
Having been with AP Films virtually from the start, David was intimately familiar with the needs of the directors of each episode. Thus, as well as being one of the four regular directors working on the series, the others being John Kelly, Alan Pattillo and Bill Harris, he was credited on some episodes as being Production Supervisor, a sign that his role was becoming as much managerial as creative. David remained a key member of the AP Films team through the production of Stingray and most of the run of Thunderbirds, and developed as a director with an eye for an interesting composition, a vital skill in productions where the cast were unable to truly act like human performers.
The strain was starting to tell however, and after completing the episode Path Of Destruction, the second story in Thunderbirds’ second series, David walked away from AP Films forever. Gerry Anderson reporting in his official biography that David Elliott told him: “I can’t stand it any more! I hate these bloody puppets and these cardboard sets”. The two old friends would not meet again for over thirty years.
Having worked for AP Films for almost a decade, one might have thought that David might have found work hard to come by. Returning to his first love as a freelance Editor he soon found work on documentary films being made by the BBC, as well as instalments of the Corporation’s legendary Wednesday Play series, and later at London Weekend Television and Channel 4. David gained such a good reputation that producers and directors would ask for him by name, thus he remained in steady employment for the next 30 years.
Despite the circumstances of his leaving AP Films, David was eventually able to look upon his Supermarionation years with fondness. He even came out of retirement to direct the Thunderbirds revival production The Stately Home Robberies in 2015, an episode of Nebula 75 in 2021 and in 2019 co-directed the Moon Rangers puppet sequences in the ITV detective series Endeavour.