Glenn Wilhide
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Glenn Wilhide (born 1958) is a British television screenwriter and producer.
Early life
Wilhide was born in Maryland USA to American parents and educated at Leighton Park School in Reading, Berkshire, UK, and the University of York where he read English and History of Art.
His paternal grandfather, also called Glenn C Wilhide (as was his father) was the inventor of the first hand power drill, for the Black and Decker company in Baltimore.
Career
His first production was The Road Home, a feature film that he produced in Poland for Channel 4 in his early twenties.[1]
He was co-owner of an independent production company called ZED Ltd in the early 1980s, where he and partner Sophie Belhetchet produced dramas including The Camomile Lawn, The Manageress and The Peacock Spring starring Naveen Andrews and Hattie Morahan in her first role.
After disbanding ZED Ltd in 1996, Wilhide produced the first series of the award-winning comedy The Royle Family starring Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, as well as Mrs Merton and Malcolm with the same team, both for Granada TV for the BBC.
Reviews for the Royle Family immediately recognised the ground-breaking nature of the comedy and its production quality. So perfect did the Guardian reviewer consider the first series to be, that he imagined the distinguished playwright Samuel Beckett endorsing it above all subsequent series of the show.[2][3][4]
The drama Metropolis, about a group of recent graduate friends finding their feet in the big city, marked Wilhide's directorial debut and was written by Peter Morgan.
Wilhide's first screenplay, a financial thriller called Extreme Cities, was set to begin filming directed by Roger Donaldson under the title of first 'Cities' and then 'Icarus Factor' starring Clive Owen, Anil Kapoor, Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom in the spring of 2012, but the project stalled.[5][6][7]
The Camomile Lawn was directed by Peter Hall (director) and starred Felicity Kendal, Jennifer Ehle, and a young Rebecca Hall.
The Manageress, which starred Cherie Lunghi, Tom Georgeson and Warren Clarke ran to two series, and was said to have had a lasting effect on the way women viewed football.
He is married to Jennifer Caron Hall.