Sir Christopher John Frayling (born 25 December 1946) is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture.

Early life and education

Christopher Frayling was born in Hampton, a suburb of London, in affluent circumstances. His father, Major Arthur Frederick Frayling, OBE (1910–1993), late of the Royal Army Service Corps, was chairman of the Hudson's Bay fur auction house in London and of the International Fur Trade Federation; his mother, Barbara Kathleen ("Betty"), daughter of record and audio equipment store owner Alfred Imhof, was a driver in international car rallies, and won the RAC Rally with her brother, Godfrey Imhof, in 1952. His brother, Nicholas, was Dean of Chichester Cathedral from 2002-2014. After attending Repton School, Frayling read history at Churchill College, Cambridge and gained a PhD in the study of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

. He was appointed a Fellow of the college in 2009.

Career

Frayling taught history at the University of Bath and was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Arts) from that University in 2003. In 1979 Frayling was appointed Professor of Cultural History at London's post-graduate art and design school, 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 ...

. Frayling was Rector of the Royal College of Art from 1996 to 2009. In 2003 he was awarded the

Sir Misha Black Award The Sir Misha Black Awards commemorate the life of Misha Black, whose work played an important role in the development of design in Britain. They are given to individuals and institutions, to honor them in their role within design education. Th ...

and was added to the

College of Medallists The College of Medallists is an association of recipients of The Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services in Design Education. Misha Black (1910–1977) was a pioneer of design in Britain. The College of Medallists was established in 2 ...

. He was the Chairman of Arts Council England from 2005 until January 2009. He also served as Chairman of the

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...

, Chairman of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee, and a Trustee of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

. He was a governor of the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

in the 1980s. In April 2014 he was appointed Chancellor of the

Arts University Bournemouth Arts University Bournemouth (abbreviated AUB) is a further and higher education university based in Poole, England, specialising in art, performance, design, and media. It was formerly known as The Arts University College at Bournemouth a ...

. He has had a wide output as a writer and critic on subjects ranging from vampires to westerns. He has written and presented television series such as ''The Art of Persuasion'' on advertising and ''Strange Landscape'' on the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. He has conducted a series of radio and television interviews with figures from the world of film, including

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

, Deborah Kerr,

Ken Adam Sir Kenneth Adam (born Klaus Hugo George Fritz Adam; 5 February 1921 – 10 March 2016) was a German-British movie production designer, best known for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for '' Dr. Stra ...

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

and

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' Do ...

. He has written and presented several television series, including ''The Face of Tutankhamun'' and ''Nightmare: Birth of Horror''. He studied

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

s and specifically director

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...

. He has written a very popular biography of Leone, ''Something To Do With Death'' (2000); helped run the Los Angeles-based Gene Autry Museum's exhibit on Leone in 2005; and appeared in numerous documentaries about Leone and his films, particularly the DVD documentaries of '' Once Upon a Time in the West'' (1968). He also provided audio commentaries for the special edition DVD releases of ''

A Fistful of Dollars ''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, a ...

'', '' For a Few Dollars More'', '' Once Upon a Time in the West'' and '' The Colossus of Rhodes''. In January 2018, he gave a lecture at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

in the Hogwarts Curriculum Lecture series on "Defence against the Dark Arts". This specialised in the treatment of vampires.

Knighthood

In 2001, he was awarded a

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...

for "Services to Art and Design Education" and chose as his motto "PERGE SCELUS MIHI DIEM PERFICIAS", which can be translated as "Proceed, varlet, and let the day be rendered perfect for my benefit".The College of Arms
/ref> That is, "Go ahead, punk, make my day". The bendlets charged with billets allude to 'perfs' or 'sprocket holes' in 35mm film, and thus stand for film studies, an area of Sir Christopher's academic work. The bendlets are placed in the 'sinister' (a traditional mark of bastardy) because Frayling's writings about westerns and cowboy films were initially regarded by other academics as illegitimate - the reference to bastardy is thus an ironic satire of this perspective. This aspect of the design was suggested by a former student of Professor Frayling's.

Arms

Select bibliography

Literature

* ''Napoleon Wrote Fiction'' (1972) * ''The Vampyre'' (1978); Gollanz ** Expanded as ''Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula'' (1991); Faber & Faber ** Expanded as ''Vampyres: Genesis and Resurrection from Count Dracula to Vampirella'' (2016); Thames & Hudson * ''Nightmare: Birth of Horror'' (1996) * ''On Craftsmanship: towards a new Bauhaus'' (2011) * ''The Yellow Peril – Dr

Fu Manchu Dr. Fu Manchu () is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, co ...

and the Rise of Chinophobia'' (2014) * ''Inside the Bloody Chamber: on Angela Carter, the Gothic and other weird tales'' (2015)

History

* ''The Face of Tutankhamun'' (1992) * ''Strange Landscape: Journey Through the Middle Ages'' (1995)

Film

* ''Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone'' (1981) * ''American Westerners'' (1984) * ''Clint Eastwood'' (1992) * ''Things to Come'' (1995) * ''Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death'' (2000) * ''Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema'' (2005) * ''Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in Italy'' (2005) * ''Ken Adam: The Art of Production Design'' (2005) * ''Once Upon a Time in The West Shooting a Masterpiece'' (2019)

Education

* ''The Royal College of Art: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Art and Design'' (1987) * ''Design of the Times: One Hundred Years of the Royal College of Art'' (1996) * ''The Art Pack'' (1998)

List of audio commentaries

*'' Beauty and the Beast'' (1946) *'' The Big Country'' (1958) – only on the US

Kino Lorber Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films ...

and German Koch Media Blu-rays. *'' The Colossus of Rhodes'' (1961) *''

Duck, You Sucker! ''Duck, You Sucker!'' ( it, Giù la testa, lit. "Duck Your Head", "Get Down"), also known as ''A Fistful of Dynamite'' and ''Once Upon a Time ... the Revolution'', is a 1971 epic Zapata Western film directed and co-written by Sergio Leone and ...

'' (1971) *''

'' (1964) *'' For a Few Dollars More'' (1965) *''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ...

'' (1931) *'' Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'' (1943) *'' The Ghost of Frankenstein'' (1942) *'' The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (1966) *'' The Innocents'' (1961) – only on the UK

BFI The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

and US

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

DVD and Blu-ray, along with a featurette he presents. *'' The Magnificent Seven'' (1960) – only on the US MGM Collector's Edition DVD, along with a featurette he presents. *'' Once Upon a Time in the West'' (1968), with actress Claudia Cardinale; directors Bernardo Bertolucci, John Carpenter,

Alex Cox Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with '' Repo Man'' and '' Sid and Nancy'', but since the release and c ...

and John Milius; and fellow film historian Dr. Sheldon Hall.

Notes

External links

Frayling on BBC ''Desert Island Discs''

Interview (02/2008)

Interview (05/2004)

Interview (02/2002)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frayling, Christopher 1946 births Living people British writers British television presenters British educational theorists Knights Bachelor Academics of the University of Bath Rectors of the Royal College of Art Academics of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Churchill College, Cambridge Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Place of birth missing (living people) People associated with Arts University Bournemouth