Leslie Norman

Leslie Norman began his career as a 14-year-old in the laboratories and editorial rooms of Warner Brothers Teddington Studios. He worked his way up from sweeping cutting-room floors to supervising editor and then assistant director. After military service he joined Ealing, where he became involved in their Australian operation. Norman's first major credit was as supervising editor of the classic outback drama about wartime cattle droving, The Overlanders (1946), starring Chips Rafferty. Back in Britain he worked on The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and Frieda (1947), before resuming his fruitful association with "Overlanders" director Harry Watt as producer of Watt's African and Australian "true-life" adventure dramas, including the Technicolor Ivory Hunter (1951) (which he also co-wrote) and West of Zanzibar (1954). Norman then produced one of the classic British war dramas of the 1950s, an epic story of Atlantic convoy duty during World War II, The Cruel Sea (1953).