Ex-BBC drama boss Mark Shivas dies

A spokesman for Headline Pictures, the film indie he co-founded with Stewart Mackinnon and Kevin Hood in 2006, said Shivas had passed away amongst family on 11 October after a period of illness.

“A great and dearly-loved man, our thoughts are with Mark's family and friends. We shall miss him enormously,” Mackinnon and Hood said in a statement.

Shivas was a highly respected TV and film producer who joined the BBC drama department in 1969 after five years on Granada TV's factual shows such as What The Papers Say and All Our Yesterdays.

His first major drama credit, 1970's The Six Wives of Henry VIII, won him a special Bafta award and he went on to pick up an Emmy for NBC's The Storyteller in 1987.

Throughout the 1970s, he produced major works for writers such as Dennis Potter, David Hare, Jack Rosenthal and Harold Pinter.

Shivas gave the late Anthony Minghella his big break with What If It's Raining? in 1985 and later worked with him on The Storyteller. In his role as head of BBC2 single drama strand Screen Two, he also commissioned and executive produced Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply.

The TV film went on to have a cinema release, paving the way for Shivas to become the first head of BBC Films in 1993. He executive produced more than 20 films, including Michael Winterbottom's Jude and Gilles Mackinnon's Hideous Kinky.

He later returned to TV after forming independent production company Perpetual Motion Pictures, which made the second series of Talking Heads as well as BBC dramas The Cambridge Spies and Telling Tales.

Shivas leaves behind his civil partner of eleven years, Karun Thakar.

Those wishing to send condolences should contact stewart@headline-pictures.com

Have your say

You must sign in to make a comment.