Jeff Winfur is a Grammy Award-winning British film director the BeatlesDocumentary series "Anthology" passed away at the age of 73. He worked on the 1980s music show "The Tube" as well as several projects with Paul McCartney.
His death was confirmed on Tuesday by Sam Winfur's daughter, who said he died in Newcastle, where he grew up. Additional details were not immediately available.
Released in the mid-1990s, The Beatles Anthology was a licensed multimedia project that included an eight-part documentary, three double albums, and a coffee table book. Wounfur spent 4 1/2 years on the film, which combined archive footage with new interviews with the then three surviving Beatles (McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, who died in 2001). Wounfur's challenges included weaving in a comment from John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980.
"He was very forthright (in the interviews)," Wonfur told the Los Angeles Times in 1995. "I thought about listening to the interviews that were done ... and getting all the relevant Q&As in any given year. They were doing (in the documentary) and then They asked the exact same question to the other three Beatles, so it looked like all four of them were answering the same questions, which they, of course."
The Anthology helped reignite the worldwide craze for the band Hardly Forgotten and brought Wonfor and co-director Bob Smeaton a Grammy in 1997 for Best Long Form Music Video.
Woonfur also directed McCartney's "In the World Tonight" and "Young Boy" videos and McCartney's video for a concert from The Cavern Club, the Liverpool venue where the Beatles played many of their early shows. It was also on hand for a Beatles 'reunion' from the '90s - the video for 'Real Love', a song left unfinished by Lennon and completed and recorded by the rest of the Beatles.
His other credits included "Band Aid 20", a documentary about the anniversary re-recording of the British charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "Sunday for Sammy" in honor of the late British actor Sammy Johnson.
Winfur has been prominent in British entertainment since the 1980s, when he directed a few episodes of The Tube and made a documentary on Shanghai Surprise, a feature film produced by Harrison starring Madonna and Sean Penn. His work with Harrison will unexpectedly lead to the biggest assignment of his career.
"I was at my dad's and it was Paul McCartney who ran up and said, 'Hi there, you're OK'? And I say, 'Yeah, I'm OK,'" Wounfur explained during his 2018 appearance at the Newcastle Film Festival.
He said, “I was talking to a buddy of yours last night. I went, “Who the hell knows that I know?” He says, “A little guy named George Harrison.” … And he said, “Anyway,” and we had a long talk into the night and he said, “We want to do a Beatle date and you're that guy.”
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