Mick Gold (born Michael Gold, London, 7 August 1947) is a British documentary film maker, photographer and journalist, who has written for publications such as ''

Creem ''Creem'' (often stylized in all caps) is a monthly American music magazine, based in Detroit, whose main print run lasted from 1969 to 1989. It was first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. Influential crit ...

'', '' Melody Maker'', and '' Let It Rock''. He has produced and directed six episodes of the BBC2 art history series The Private Life of a Masterpiece, and four films for the Channel 4 series Dispatches. In 1995 he won the Outstanding Historical Programming Emmy award for his '' Watergate'' documentary series.

Career

Gold studied English literature at Sussex University, followed by a degree in film and TV production at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

. From 1972 to 1978, he photographed and wrote about rock music for a variety of publications including ''

'', '' Melody Maker'', and '' Let It Rock''. In 1976, he published ''Rock On the Road'', a collection of photo-essays about rock music and its sub-cultural audiences. Contributors to the book included

Simon Frith Simon Webster Frith (born 1946) is a British sociomusicologist and former rock critic who specializes in popular music culture. He is Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh. Career As a student, he read PPE at Oxford and earned ...

and John Pidgeon. The Arts Council of Great Britain funded several of his arts documentaries, including ''Europe After the Rain'' (1978), a history of

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

and Surrealism, and '' Schiele in Prison '' (1980), which dramatised the prison diary of Viennese artist Egon Schiele. Gold co-directed ''Hostage '' (1999), a series of three films for

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in ...

about the hostage crisis in Lebanon from 1984 to 1991. The series won first prize at the 1999 Festival International du Film d'Histoire, Pessac. Gold has produced and directed several history series for BBC2, including '' Watergate'' (1994), a five-hour series about the downfall of President Nixon which won a Primetime Emmy Award, and a duPont Columbia Award. Gold co-directed '' Death of Apartheid'' (US title: ''Mandela's Fight For Freedom'') (1995), a three-hour history of how Nelson Mandela negotiated his way out of prison and into power as the first President of an

ANC The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

government of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. The series was written by the South African journalist,

Allister Sparks Allister Haddon Sparks (10 March 1933 – 19 September 2016) was a South African writer, journalist, and political commentator. He was the editor of ''The Rand Daily Mail'' when it broke Muldergate, the story of how the apartheid government sec ...

, and it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 1996. ''Endgame In Ireland'' (2001), won a Peabody Award for its "enlightening exploration of the tortuous complexities of international peace negotiations in Northern Ireland". Gold also produced and directed six episodes of the BBC2 art history series '' The Private Life of a Masterpiece'', focusing on paintings by Velázquez,

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

, Delacroix,

Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is espec ...

, Dalí, and

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...

. Gold directed four films for the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

series '' Dispatches'' about UK political developments, written and presented by journalist

Andrew Rawnsley Andrew Nicholas James Rawnsley (born 5 January 1962) is a British political journalist and broadcaster. A columnist and chief political commentator for ''The Observer'', he has written two books on New Labour. Early life Rawnsley was born in Le ...

, ending with ''A Year Inside Number 10''. In 2007, Gold produced and directed a controversial documentary about US foreign policy presented by

Richard Perle Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to ...

, "The Case for War", which was broadcast by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

as part of the series '' America at a Crossroads''. In 2013, Gold produced and directed a series on the history of

the blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...

, ''Blues America'', which was broadcast on BBC Four. In 2016, Gold produced and directed ''The Arc of History'', the fourth film in the series ''Inside Obama's White House'', produced by Brook Lapping for BBC2. Gold was producer-director of a two part history of Cuba, focusing on the ways in which the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...

impacted on global politics, beginning with the Cold War and ending with President Obama's détente with Raúl Castro. The series was broadcast by

Arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...

in December 2019, titled ''Cuba: la révolution et le monde''. ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' wrote: "Diplomacy is a complex field, but it can be exciting, even on television. And when it comes to the foreign policy pursued for sixty years by a country as unusual as Cuba, this line of attack can result in a breathtaking TV programme." A revised version was broadcast by BBC2 in August 2020, titled ''Cuba: Castro vs the World''.

Awards

* 2002, nominated, BAFTA Awards, Best current affairs, for ''Endgame in Ireland''. * 1995, won, Emmy award, Outstanding Historical Programming, for ''Watergate''

References

External links

*
Mick Gold's articles on Rock's Back Pages

Mick Gold's photos on Rock Archive

Mick Gold's photos on Getty images
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gold, Mick 1947 births Living people English music journalists British television producers British documentary filmmakers Alumni of the University of Sussex Alumni of the Royal College of Art Artists from London