John Irvin, Director Who Made Guinness Nervous and Schwarzenegger Explode, Dies at 86

John Irvin, the director who bounced from war zones to Cold War spycraft, from Hollywood horror to Sherwood Forest swashbuckling, and from Harold Pinter to Arnold Schwarzenegger, has died aged 86. He was, as he admitted, "a bit split."

“I like playing with expensive toys, yet I also like the miniatures. I hate being pigeonholed, and I like to do the unexpected." And indeed, his career was a masterclass in the unexpected, unless you consider directing both Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Raw Deal to be a predictable career trajectory.

His crowning achievement was the 1979 BBC mini-series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, adapted from John le Carré's novel. Alec Guinness, with "clenched elegance and economy," played George Smiley, and was so formidable that Irvin confessed, "I was terrified, knowing I had to spend a year with him." Guinness, ever the perfectionist, would strike out lines from the script if he felt he could convey the information with a mere expression. When Irvin offered a suggestion on the first day of rehearsals, it was rejected out of hand. But after persuading Guinness to try it his way, Irvin was vindicated: "Very good, John," the actor said. "Ten out of ten."

Guinness's trepidation didn't end there. At 3am one night, he phoned Irvin to fret that he "hadn't found Smiley" and suggested recasting. Hours later, he walked off the set mid-scene. Irvin brought him back and declared, "We're going to do it in one take. Do you understand?" When asked later what he liked about Irvin's style, Guinness said: "Balls behind the camera."

The series, described by producer Jonathan Powell as "a sort of elegy for empire," drew over 8 million viewers (more than 15% of the UK population) and won several prizes, including best drama series at the Broadcasting Press Guild awards.

From moles to dogs: Irvin's next feature was The Dogs of War (1980), adapted from Frederick Forsyth's novel, starring Christopher Walken as a mercenary toppling a west African dictator. The film was stark and uncompromising - and hated by Forsyth.

Then came the ghosts. Ghost Story (1981) featured a cast of legends - Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. - who were famous before Irvin was born. The New England winter proved scarier than any spectre. When Irvin finished the last shot, he told Astaire, "It's all over. You can go home to Beverly Hills." Astaire replied, "Oh John, I'm so happy. I thought I was going to go home in a box."

Horses followed in Champions (1984), the story of cancer-stricken jockey Bob Champion (John Hurt), then reptiles in Turtle Diary (1985), a low-key comedy adapted by Pinter from Russell Hoban's novel, with Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley plotting to liberate giant sea turtles. Irvin compared working with that cast to "driving a Ford Mustang and trading up to a Ferrari."

Then he swapped the Ferrari for a bulldozer: Raw Deal (1986), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as an ex-FBI agent infiltrating the Chicago mob. Irvin admitted it was "not dealing with the great mysteries of life."

His long-held desire to make a Vietnam film was satisfied with Hamburger Hill (1987), focusing on the real-life 10-day battle to capture Dong Ap Bia in 1969. Irvin aimed to "get as close as possible to the experience of combat without thrills or moralising. I wanted the audience to be there." Unfortunately, the audience was fatigued by Vietnam movies: Oliver Stone's Platoon had dominated the Oscars, and Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket pipped Irvin's film to the post in the US. Irvin claimed in 2021 that Kubrick had delayed his release until he was secretly shown a print of Hamburger Hill by a colour grader working on both movies. Still, critic Pauline Kael considered it superior to both Stone's and Kubrick's films, praising Irvin's "pride of a director who knows what he's doing."

Born in Wallasey (then Cheshire, now Merseyside) to Elsie and Charles Irvin, a mechanical engineer, John and his twin brother David moved to South Shields and were educated at Durham school. Film bewitched John early: "When I was a child, I used to organise my gangs into film units. I was brought up near Newcastle in the same town as Ridley Scott - there must be something about the smell of the fish queues that produces film directors."

He enrolled at the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School), housed above a butcher's shop in Brixton. His mother cried for two days when she learned he wouldn't be an architect. After working as an apprentice editor at Rank, he received a British Film Institute grant for Gala Day (1963), a documentary about the Durham miners' gala, bought by the BBC. He made other documentaries for the BBC and his own company, Mithras Films (formed in 1962 with Maurice Hatton), including The 26 (1966), about ex-miners in the 1926 General Strike, and the Bafta-nominated Mafia No! (1967), documenting a protest march in western Sicily against organized crime. He lived with Bedouin tribespeople for four months while filming in Yemen and was a film adviser to the Jamaican government in 1963-64.

By the end of the 1960s, he'd had enough: "I reached the point in Vietnam where I had simply seen too much suffering." He turned to British television, working on series including The Nearly Man (1974-75) with writer Arthur Hopcraft, who later adapted Hard Times and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

His later films included Next of Kin (1989) with Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson, and Robin Hood (1991) with Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman, overshadowed by Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which opened a month later. Irvin's earthy take was inspired by the Hells Angels: "Robin and his men must have terrorised Nottingham like a motorbike gang." When Bergin fell ill, the production relied on stand-ins: "We had to hide the problem from the studio, because otherwise they would have stopped the production."

He continued to show range: Widows' Peak (1994) with Joan Plowright and Mia Farrow, A Month By the Lake (1995) with Thurman and Vanessa Redgrave, then hard-nosed thrillers City of Industry (1997) with Harvey Keitel, and Shiner (2000) with Michael Caine and Martin Landau. He returned to combat in the TV movie When Trumpets Fade (1998), set in World War II's dying days, and Mandela's Gun (2016) dramatized Nelson Mandela's guerrilla days. At his death, he was working on Water from an Ancient Well, a documentary about his friend, South African musician Abdullah Ibrahim, who died in June.

"To me, being a director is the most privileged existence there is," Irvin said. "It's bloody hard work, but when it's going well, it's like having the best table in the restaurant."

He is survived by his children Emilie, Luke, and Amy from his marriage to Sophie (née Litchfield), who died in 1991, and by two grandchildren, Finn and Isla.