Mark Shivas was a British television producer, film producer and executive. Born in Banstead Surrey, Shivas was the son of a schoolmaster father who specialising in teaching English and a mother who was a librarian. He attended Whitgift School in Croydon and Merton College, Oxford where he read Law. While at University, Shivas wrote for the student magazine Oxford Opinions. After abandoning a legal career, the co-founder and assistant editor of the magazine Movie which used the French publication Cahiers du Cinema as its model, and contributed interviews and articles to The New York Times. He began his television career at Granada Television in 1964 as an assistant to the head of the story department and later worked on the company's Cinema series as a producer and presenter. In 1969 he switched networks and the field in which he worked by joining the BBC drama department, quickly becoming one of the corporation's most successful and prolific producers. He achieved particular success with the costume drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII, which gained three Emmy Award nominations in 1972, and Dennis Potter's Casanova. . 

April 24th, 1938 in Banstead  /  Died:   Oct 11th, 2008