Early career in advertising, agent for photographer David Bailey; film producer from late 1960s; films include Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, The Duellists (Ridley Scott's feature film debut), Chariots of Fire (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Local Hero, Memphis Belle, Meeting Venus, The Killing Fields and The Mission; Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Pictures from 1986 to 1988; made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, May 2006; awarded CBE 1982; made life peer in 1997 as Baron Puttnam of Queensgate; chairman of the National Film and Television School for 10 years.