Tony Tenser
| Tony Tenser | |
|---|---|
| Born | Samuel Anthony Tenser 10 August 1920 |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. |
| Nationality | British |
| Years active | 1961-2007 |
Samuel Anthony Tenser (10 August 1920 – 5 December 2007)[1] was an English-born film producer of Lithuanian-Jewish descent. He began as the producer of low budget exploitation films before moving into mainstream productions.
Life and career
Raised in a tenement in Shoreditch, with the family doing piecework for local tailors, Tenser was one of seven children.[2] After war service as a technician in the Royal Air Force, he became a trainee manager for the ABC Cinemas circuit.[3] Working for Miracle Films, Tenser coined the term "sex kitten" for the French movie star Brigitte Bardot when The Light Across the Street (La lumière d'en face, 1955) was released in the UK.[3]
In 1960, with business partner Michael Klinger, he opened the Compton Cinema Club, a private members club. Initially the distributors of foreign films, they diversified into production in partnership with the owners of the Cameo chain of cinema, and founded Compton Cameo Films. The first film of the new company was Naked as Nature Intended (1961), a nudist film
Persuaded by his business partner in Compton Films, Michael Klinger. Tenser was responsible for producing Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966). the first two films in English made by the Polish director Roman Polanski. He founded his own production company Tigon British Film Productions in 1966, which made other mainstream films such as Michael Reeves' two features The Sorcerers (1966) and Witchfinder General (1967), as well as other horror films. After production of The Creeping Flesh (1973) concluded, Tenser resigned from Tigon.[1] Following his last film as executive producer, Frightmare (1974), he retired from the film industry.M[3]
With his much younger third wife, he settled in Southport in 1978;[1] the couple later separated, and Tenser spent his last years in a care home opposite the house he had shared with his wife.[2]
Select Credits
- Naked - As Nature Intended (1961)
- My Bare Lady (1962)
- That Kind of Girl (1963)
- The Yellow Teddybears (1963)
- Saturday Night Out (1964)
- The Black Torment (1964)
- London in the Raw (1964)
- The Pleasure Girls (1965)
- Primitive London (1965)
- A Study in Terror (1965)
- Repulsion (1965)
- Cul-de-Sac (1966)
- Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966)
- The Projected Man (1967)
- The Sorcerers (1967)
- Witchfinder General (1968)
- The Blood Beast Terror (1968)
- Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
- Love in Our Time (1968)
- What's Good for the Goose (1968)
- The Haunted House of Horror (1968)
- Zeta One (1969)
- The Body Stealers (1969)
- Monique (1970)
- The Blood on Satan's Claw (1970)
- Black Beauty (1971)
- Hannie Caulder (1971)
- Doomwatch (1972)
- The Creeping Flesh (1973)
- Not Now, Darling (1973)
- Frightmare (1974)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Gavin Gaughan "Obituary: Tony Tenser", The Guardian, 13 March 2008
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Matthew Sweet "The lost worlds of British cinema: The horror", The Independent, 29 January 2006
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Tom Vallance "Tony Tenser: Film producer and distributor who dubbed Bardot a 'sex kitten'", The Independent, 20 December 2007
Further reading
- Beasts in the Cellar : The exploitation film career of Tony Tenser. by John Hamilton, Fab Press, 2005.
- Naked as Nature Intended: The Epic Tale of a Nudist Picture. Suffolk & Watt, 2013, ISBN 9780954598594.
External links
- Tony Tenser at the Internet Movie Database
- Detailed document on Tenser's career
- Tenser Biography at Allmovie.com
- New York Times article
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