The Lord Fellowes of West Stafford | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2018 | |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 13 January 2011 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Julian Alexander Fellowes (1949-08-17)17 August 1949 (age 76) |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Residence(s) | Dorset, England |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation |
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Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West StaffordDL (born 17 August 1949), known professionally asJulian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, writer, producer, film director, andConservativepeer. He has receivednumerous accolades, including anAcademy Award and twoEmmy Awards as well as nominations for fourBAFTA Awards, aGolden Globe Award, twoOlivier Awards, and aTony Award.
Fellowes won theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the murder mystery filmGosford Park (2001). He gained renown as the creator, writer and executive producer of themultiple award-winningITV television seriesDownton Abbey (2010–2015) and theHBO seriesThe Gilded Age (2022–present). He also wrote books for stage musicals, includingMary Poppins (2004) andSchool of Rock (2015).
Fellowes was born into a family of theBritish landed gentry inCairo, Egypt, the youngest of four boys, to Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes (1912–1999) and his British wife, Olwen Mary (née Stuart-Jones).[1] His father was a diplomat andArabist who campaigned to haveHaile Selassie,Emperor of Ethiopia, restored to his throne duringWorld War II.[2] His great-grandfather wasJohn Wrightson, a pioneer in agricultural education and the founder ofDownton Agricultural College.[3] Peregrine's uncle was Peregrine Forbes Morant Fellowes (1883–1955),Air Commodore and DSO.
Fellowes has three older brothers: actor Nicholas Peregrine James; writer David Andrew; and playwright Roderick Oliver.[4] The siblings' childhood home was at Wetherby Place,South Kensington,[5] and afterwards atChiddingly, East Sussex, where Fellowes lived from August 1959 until November 1988, and where his parents are buried.
The house in Chiddingly, which had been owned by thewhodunit writerC. H. B. Kitchin, was within easy reach of London where his father, who had been a diplomat, worked as an executive forShell. Part of Fellowes' formative years were also spent inNigeria, where his father helped run Shell operations during the transition from thecolonial era toNigeria's Independence.[6][7] Fellowes has described him as one "of that last generation of men who lived in a pat of butter without knowing it. My mother put him on a train on Monday mornings and drove up to London in the afternoon. At the flat she'd be waiting in a snappy littlecocktail dress with a delicious dinner and drink. Lovely, really."
The friendship his family developed with another family in the village, the Kingsleys, influenced Fellowes. David Kingsley was head ofBritish Lion Films, the company responsible for manyPeter Sellers comedies. Sometimes "glamorous figures" would visit the Kingsleys' house. Fellowes said that he thinks he "learnt from David Kingsley that you could actually make a living in the film business."[8]
Fellowes was educated at severalprivate schools in Britain, includingWetherby School, St Philip's School (a Catholic boys school in South Kensington) andAmpleforth College, which his father had preferred over Eton. He read English Literature atMagdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a member ofFootlights. He graduated with a 2:1.[9] He studied further at theWebber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.[10][citation needed] In July 1973,The Stage gave a good review to the performance of Fellowes andOsmund Bullock as the Larrabee brothers inSabrina Fair, a Webber Douglas end-of-term play.[11]
As an actor, Fellowes began his acting career at theRoyal Theatre, Northampton. He has appeared in severalWest End productions, including Samuel Taylor'sA Touch of Spring,Alan Ayckbourn'sJoking Apart and a revival ofNoël Coward'sPresent Laughter. He appeared at theNational Theatre inThe Futurists, written by Dusty Hughes. Fellowes wrote several romantic novels in the 1970s, under the pseudonym Rebecca Greville.[12] He has continued his acting career while writing.
Fellowes moved toLos Angeles in 1981 and played a number of small roles on television for the next two years, including a role inTales of the Unexpected. He believed that his breakthrough had come when he was considered to replaceHervé Villechaize as the assistant on the television seriesFantasy Island, but the role went to actorChristopher Hewett instead.[13] He was unable to get an audition for the Disney filmBaby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985) in Los Angeles, but was offered the role when he was visiting England. When he asked the film's director why he was not able to get an interview in Los Angeles, he was told that they felt the best actors were in Britain.[14]
After this, Fellowes decided to move back to England to further his career, and soon played a leading role in the 1987 TV seriesKnights of God as Brother Hugo, the "ambitious and ruthless second-in-command" of a futuristic military cult. Subsequently, in 1991 he played Neville Marsham inDanny Boyle'sFor the Greater Good and Dr. Jobling in the1994 BBC adaptation ofMartin Chuzzlewit. Other notable acting roles included the role of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996BBC drama serialOur Friends in the North and the 2nd Duke of Richmond in the BBC drama serialAristocrats. He portrayedGeorge IV as the Prince Regent twice: first in the filmThe Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) and the second in the 1996 adaptation ofBernard Cornwell's novelSharpe's Regiment, as well as playing Major Dunnett inSharpe's Rifles. He also played the part of Kilwillie onMonarch of the Glen. He appeared as the leader of the Hullabaloos in the television adaptation of Arthur Ransome'sCoot Club, calledSwallows and Amazons Forever! (1984).
Fellowes wrote the script forGosford Park, which won theOscar for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 2002.[15] He also won aWriters Guild of America award for it. In late 2005, Fellowes made his directorial debut with the filmSeparate Lies, for which he won theNational Board of Review Award for Best Directorial Debut.[16]
He launched a new series onBBC One in 2004,Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder, which he wrote and introduced onscreen. Fellowes's novelSnobs was published in 2004. It focuses on the social nuances of the upper class and concerns the marriage of an upper middle-class girl to a peer.Snobs was aSunday Times best-seller. In 2009 his novelPast Imperfect was published. AnotherSunday Times best-seller, it deals with thedébutante season of 1968, comparing the world then to the world of 2008. He was the presenter ofNever Mind the Full Stops, a panel game show broadcast onBBC Four from 2006 to 2007. As a writer, he penned the script to the West End musicalMary Poppins (2004), produced bySir Cameron Mackintosh andDisney, which opened onBroadway in November 2006.
In 2009,Momentum Pictures andSony Pictures releasedThe Young Victoria, starringEmily Blunt, for which Fellowes wrote the original screenplay. Other screenwriting credits includeVanity Fair,The Tourist andFrom Time to Time, which he also directed, and which won Best Picture at theChicago Children's Film Festival, the Youth Jury Award at theSeattle International Film Festival, Best Picture at the Fiuggi Family Festival in Rome, and the Young Jury Award atCinemagic inBelfast. His greatest commercial success wasThe Tourist, which grossed US$278 million worldwide, and for which he co-wrote the screenplay withChristopher McQuarrie andFlorian Henckel von Donnersmarck.[17]
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He created the hugely successful and critically acclaimed period dramaDownton Abbey forITV1 in 2010.[18] The series starred a large ensemble cast which includedHugh Bonneville,Michelle Dockery,Dan Stevens,Elizabeth McGovern,Jim Carter,Penelope Wilton, andMaggie Smith. Fellowes won twoPrimetime Emmy Awards forOutstanding Limited Series andOutstanding Writing for a Limited Series as well as aBroadcasting Press Guild award for writingDownton Abbey. He also received nominations for aBAFTA Award and aGolden Globe Award. He wrote two follow-up filmsDownton Abbey (2019) andDownton Abbey: A New Era (2022) both of which were released theatrically and were well received commercially and critically.
He wrote a newTitanic miniseries that was shown on ITV1 in March–April 2012.[19] He unsuccessfully auditioned for the role ofMaster of Lake-town in the 2012–2014The Hobbit series.[15] In 2013 he wrote the screenplay for the romance dramaRomeo & Juliet starringHailee Steinfeld,Damian Lewis, andPaul Giamatti, which was adapted from theWilliam Shakespeareplay of the same name.
He wrote the book for the musicalSchool of Rock which opened at The Winter Garden on Broadway in December 2015. In May 2016 he was nominated for aTony Award for Best Book of a Musical.[20] In April 2016, a period novel,Belgravia, began being released in 11 weekly episodes, and is available, via an app, in audio and text format.[21]
In 2018, it was reported that Fellowes was slated to serve as a writer on a TV drama series about theRothschild banking dynasty, withJemima Goldsmith as executive producer.[22] As of 2025, it remains unproduced.
Fellowes was the screenwriter and one of the producers forDownton Abbey, which was released in September 2019, and its sequel,Downton Abbey: A New Era. Most members of the cast of the television programme appear in the movie versions.[23][24]
In April 2015,The Hollywood Reporter reported that Fellowes was at work on a new period drama series forNBC television, to be set in late 19th-centuryNew York City, entitledThe Gilded Age.[25] Fellowes suggested that a younger version ofMaggie Smith's Dowager Countess character from hisDownton Abbey drama might appear in the new series, saying: "Robert Crawley would be in his early teens, Cora would be a child. A young Violet [the Dowager Countess] could make an appearance."[25] As the title suggests, the series would be set during the time of America's so-calledGilded Age – the industrial boom era in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – and portray the upper echelons of New York'shigh society during that period.[25]
Production and writing forThe Gilded Age was updated in January 2016 indicating that filming would start at the end of 2016. As reported in RadioTimes: "NBC'sThe Gilded Age is set to start shooting later this year, Fellowes tells RadioTimes.com. Asked whether he'd written the script yet, Fellowes replied, 'No I haven't, no. I'm doing that this year', before adding: 'And then hopefully shooting at the end of the year.'"[26] In April 2016, it was announced that Fellowes would be the producer ofThe Gilded Age when it was reported that Fellowes is "about to begin writingThe Gilded Age for NBC, a sort of AmericanDownton about fortunes made and lost in late 19th century New York, which he will also produce."[27]
On 4 June 2016, Fellowes was asked byThe Los Angeles Times, "Where doesThe Gilded Age stand?" Fellowes replied,
It stands really with me up to my neck in research, and I'm clearing the decks, so that when I startGilded Age, I'm only doingGilded Age. These people were extraordinary. You can see why they frightened the old guard, because they saw no boundaries. They wanted to build a palace, they built a palace. They wanted to buy a yacht, they bought a yacht. The old guard in New York weren't like that at all, and suddenly this whirlwind of couture descended on their heads. The newcomers redesigned being rich. They created a rich culture that we still have – people who are rich today are generally rich in a way that was established in America in the 1880s, '90s, 1900s. It was different from Europe. Something like Newport would never have happened in any other country, where you have huge palaces, and then about 20 yards away, another huge palace, and 20 yards beyond that another huge palace. In England right up to the 1930s, when people made money, they would buy an estate of 5,000 acres and they'd have to look after Nanny. The Americans of the 1880s and '90s didn't want too much of that.[28]
In August 2016, Fellowes indicated that his plans forThe Gilded Age would not overlap substantially with the characters inDownton Abbey since most of them would have been children in those earlier "prequel" decades. Writing forCreative Screenwriting, Sam Roads asked Fellowes, "Will there be any connection betweenThe Gilded Age andDownton Abbey?" to which Fellowes stated:
I can't see it really. Someone asked if you would you see any of theDownton characters, but most of them would be children. They said that Violet wouldn't be a child, and I replied that "Yes, I suppose you could see a younger Violet", and this became a newspaper story. "Violet comes from Downton to appear inThe Gilded Age!" It might be fun, but I doubt at the beginning, because I want it to be a new show with new people.[29]
Fellowes wrote an adaptation of the novelDoctor Thorne by one of his favorite writers,Anthony Trollope.[30][31] TheITV adaptation aired on 6 March 2016.[32] A report in early September 2018 stated that Fellowes had two projects underway, both in development: the Netflix seriesThe English Game andThe Gilded Age for NBC.[23] In May 2019,The Gilded Age moved toHBO, and it premiered in January 2022.[33]
| Title | Year | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Gosford Park | No | Yes | Associate | |
| 2004 | Vanity Fair | No | Yes | No | Based onthe novel byWilliam Makepeace Thackeray |
| Piccadilly Jim | No | Yes | No | Based on the novel byP. G. Wodehouse | |
| 2005 | Separate Lies | Yes | Yes | No | Based on the novel byNigel Balchin |
| 2009 | The Young Victoria | No | Yes | No | |
| From Time to Time | Yes | Yes | Yes | Based onthe novel byLucy M. Boston | |
| 2010 | The Tourist | No | Yes | No | [34] |
| 2013 | Romeo & Juliet | No | Yes | Yes | Adapted from the play byWilliam Shakespeare |
| 2017 | Crooked House | No | Yes | No | Adapted fromthe novel of the same name byAgatha Christie |
| 2018 | The Chaperone | No | Yes | Executive | |
| 2019 | Downton Abbey | No | Yes | Yes | Continuation of 2010–2015 television series |
| 2022 | Downton Abbey: A New Era | No | Yes | Yes | |
| 2025 | Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale | No | Yes | Yes |
| Title | Year | Writer | Creator | Executive Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Julian Fellowes Investigates | Yes | Yes | No | BBC One series; also actor |
| 2010–2015 | Downton Abbey | Yes | Yes | Yes | ITV /PBS;(series 1–6) |
| 2012 | Titanic | Yes | No | No | ITV1 Four-part Miniseries |
| 2016 | Doctor Thorne | Yes | No | Yes | ITV series; Based on theAnthony Trollope novel |
| 2020 | Belgravia | Yes | Yes | Yes | ITV series |
| 2020 | The English Game | Yes | Yes | Yes | Netflix series |
| 2022–present | The Gilded Age | Yes | Yes | Yes | HBO series |
| 2024 | How It Really Happened | No | No | No | Interviewee; Two-part episode on the Titanic |
| Title | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Mary Poppins | Adapted from the novels byP. L. Travers |
| 2015 | School of Rock | Adapted from the2003 film of the same name |
| 2016 | Half a Sixpence | Based onH. G. Wells' novelKipps |
| 2016 | The Wind in the Willows | Adapted from thenovel of the same name byKenneth Grahame |
On 13 January 2011, Fellowes was elevated to thepeerage, being createdBaron Fellowes of West Stafford, ofWest Stafford in theCounty of Dorset,[35] and on the same day wasintroduced in theHouse of Lords,[36] where he sits on theConservative benches.[37]
Fellowes is involved in volunteer work.[38] He is Chairman of theRNIB appeal forTalking Books. He is avice-president of the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust[39] andPatron of a number of charities: the southwest branch ofAge UK,Changing Faces, Living Paintings, theRainbow Trust Children's Charity,Breast Cancer Haven and the Nursing Memorial Appeal. He also supports other causes, including charities concerned with the care of those suffering fromAlzheimer's disease. He recently[when?] opened the Dorset office of the southwest adoption charity, Families for Children. On 19 May 2022, Fellowes was awarded The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. Prior Award winners include authorTom Wolfe,Louis Auchincloss, andDavid McCullough. AuthorWashington Irving founded the Society in 1835. Fellowes sits on the Appeal Council for theNational Memorial Arboretum and is a Patron ofMoviola, an initiative aimed at facilitating rural cinema screenings in theWest Country.[40] He also sits on the Arts and MediaHonours Committee.
Fellowes supportedBrexit in the 2016 EU referendum.[41]
On 28 April 1990, Fellowes married Emma Joy Kitchener (born 1963), daughter of Charles Kitchener (1920–1982) and alady-in-waiting toPrincess Michael of Kent. She is also a great-grandniece ofHerbert, 1st Earl Kitchener.[42] He proposed to her only 20 minutes after meeting her at a party, "having spent 19 minutes getting up the nerve". On 15 October 1998 the Fellowes family changed its surname from Fellowes to Kitchener-Fellowes.[43][44][45]
Fellowes publicly expressed his dissatisfaction that theproposals to change the rules of royal succession were not extended tohereditary peerages; this would have allowed his wife to succeed her uncle asCountess Kitchener in her own right. He said: "I find it ridiculous that, in 2011, a perfectly sentient adult woman has no rights of inheritance whatsoever when it comes to a hereditary title."[46] Instead, thetitle became extinct on her uncle's death because there were no male heirs, as he was unmarried.
On 9 May 2012, QueenElizabeth II issued aroyal warrant of precedence granting Lady Fellowes the same rank and style as the daughter of anearl, as would have been due to her if her late father had survived his brother and therefore succeeded to the earldom.[47] Fellowes and his wife have one son, Peregrine Charles Morant Kitchener-Fellowes (born 1991).[44]
Fellowes was appointed adeputy lieutenant ofDorset in 2009.[48] He is alsolord of the manor ofTattershall inLincolnshire,[49][50] andpresident of the Society of Dorset Men. Their main family home is inDorset.[51]
His wife wasstory editor forDownton Abbey and works with charities, including the Nursing Memorial Appeal.[45]
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He has received numerous accolades including anAcademy Award and twoEmmy Awards as well as nominations for fourBAFTA Awards, aGolden Globe Award, twoLaurence Olivier Awards, and aTony Award. He won theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the murder mysteryGosford Park (2001) and twoPrimetime Emmy Awards for the period drama seriesDownton Abbey (2010 to 2015). He has also received numerous Commonwealth and scholastic honours as well as several memberships and fellowships.
His only experience of being waited on by a houseful of servants came from living in Nigeria, where his father worked as a Shell executive.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Calling himself a "lifetime devotee of Trollope," Fellowes explained that he is his "favorite among the great 19th century English novelists and certainly the strongest influence over my work that I am conscious of." Fellowes "could not be more delighted" to adapt "Doctor Thorne."
Trollope is one of my favorite writers of all time. His emotional position is very similar to my own in that nobody is all good or all bad. His characters have a mixture of ruthlessness and toughness with inner decency. I've always wanted to see more of him on television, instead of it always being Jane Austen or Charles Dickens.
"My own situation was unusual because I was the first writer on it, and then, two years later, I was asked back by Graham King to do some more, and so I was also the last, apart from the director, Florian...
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Fellowes of West Stafford | Followed by |
