Max Morgan-Witts (born 27 September 1931) is a British producer, director and author of Canadian origin. Morgan-Witts was a Director/Producer at

Granada TV ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...

which he joined on January 9, 1956. He directed television shows for Granada, including ''

The Army Game ''The Army Game'' is a British television sitcom that aired on ITV from 19 June 1957 to 20 June 1961. It was the very first ITV sitcom and was made by Granada, and created by Sid Colin. It follows the exploits of Hut 29, a dysfunctional gro ...

'', which was the UK's No. 1 television show during each of the approximately 50 episodes he directed. Afterwards Morgan-Witts directed 15 of the earliest episodes of ''

Coronation Street ''Coronation Street'' is an English soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres around a cobbled, terraced street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner-city Salford. Orig ...

'' (between July & August 1961 and January and April 1963), which followed ''The Army Game'' as Britain's top-rated TV show. After Granada TV, Morgan-Witts moved to

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

, as a producer and executive producer in the Science & Features Department. He was editor and executive producer of ''

Tomorrow's World ''Tomorrow's World'' is a former British television series about contemporary developments in science and technology. First transmitted on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003. The ''Tomorro ...

'', a live, weekly, popular science programme. He was responsible for 14 one-hour episodes of ''The British Empire'', a historical documentary series. It was filmed in 40 countries and at the time was the most expensive and ambitious documentary series the BBC had made. He was Director and Producer of many one-hour film documentaries made for peak time viewing on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

, most of which he wrote himself but for one of which he hired Gordon Thomas. This was the beginning of their writing partnership. Morgan-Witts wrote 10 non-fiction books with Thomas, four of which were made into feature films, includin
''Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb''
which was first a four-hour

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

special and then re-cut as a feature. Another was ''

Voyage of the Damned ''Voyage of the Damned'' is a 1976 drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with an all-star cast featuring Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Max von Sydow, James Mason, and Malcolm McDowell. The story was inspired by actual events co ...

'', a highly rated feature film which is frequently repeated on TV worldwide. Morgan-Witts has been awarded the

Edgar Allan Poe Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

and is a Knight of Mark Twain. Now retired, Morgan-Witts and his wife, Pauline, live in London. They have two children, Paul and Michele, and four grandchildren.

Bibliography

with Gordon Thomas *''The Day the World Ended'' (1969) – a factual novel about the eruption of

Mount Pelée Mount Pelée or Mont Pelée ( ; french: Montagne Pelée, ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Montann Pèlé, meaning "bald mountain" or "peeled mountain") is an active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island and French overseas departmen ...

in 1902 and the basis for the 1980 film '' When Time Ran Out...'' *''The San Francisco Earthquake'' (1971) *''Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle'' (1972) *''Voyage of the Damned'' (1974) *''Guernica: The Crucible of World War II'' (1975) *''Ruin from the Air: The Enola Gay's Atomic Mission to Hiroshima'' (1977) *''The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929'' (1979) *''Pontiff'' (1983) *''Anatomy of an Epidemic: The True Story of a Town, a Hotel, a Silent Killer, and a Medical Detection Team'' (1984) *''The Year of Armageddon: The Pope and the Bomb'' (1984)

Sources

Source of information is from historic records and from the author's biographical notes

External links

*
Futerman, Rose & Associates Literary AgentsNew York TimesThree Dot blogUniversity California, Berkeley, The Books of the Century: 1970-1979
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan-Witts, Max British television directors British non-fiction writers Edgar Award winners Living people 1931 births British male writers Male non-fiction writers Canadian emigrants to England