List of British Jewish entertainers

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This list of British Jewish entertainers includes Jewish entertainers (actors, musicians and comedians) from the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. Listed entertainers are ones who embrace Jewish culture or Judaism rather than simply having Jewish ancestry.

The number of Jews contributing to British cinema increased after 1933, when Jews were prohibited from working in Nazi Germany.^[1] In the early 1930s, the Imperial Fascist League's anti-semitic newspaper The Fascist sought to isolate the Jews in British cinema.^[2]

Stephen Brook wrote in The Club in 1989 that while there had been Jewish actors in British theatre, Jews had been more prominent as producers or agents.^[3] The Independent observed that British-Jewish comedians had taken the lead from American-Jewish comedian Jackie Mason by laughing at their own Jewish neuroses, Jewish mothers, and their leaning towards chicken soup and chopped liver, which they would not have done a decade prior.^[4] By the year 2000, British-Jewish comics may have reached their largest numbers.^[5]

• Josh Appignanesi (b. 1975) film director, producer, and screenwriter, best known for the feature film Song of Songs (2006), starring Natalie Press, which he directed, co-wrote and co-produced. The film won several awards including special commendation for Best British Film at Edinburgh Film Festival. The Observer said the film "reveals a distinctive and bold new voice in British cinema."^[103] He has written and directed several short films, most notably Ex Memoria (2006) which also stars Natalie Press as well as Sara Kestelman. He is the son of writers Lisa and Richard Appignanesi and brother of Katrina Forrester.^[104] Lisa is a Polish-born British-Canadian^{[citation needed]} writer, novelist, and campaigner for free expression. Until 2021, she was the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a former President of English PEN and Chair of the Freud Museum London. She chaired the 2017 Booker International Prize won by Olga Tokarczuk.
• Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein (1899–1993), founding chairman of London-based Granada Group and the founder of Manchester-based Granada Television; described by the British Film Institute (BFI) as the "dominant influence on the growth and development of commercial television in Britain".^[105] In 1945–46, Bernstein formed Transatlantic Pictures in partnership with Alfred Hitchcock, and later in his career, was awarded a life peerage by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1969 Birthday Honours List for his services to television, and in 1984 he was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to British television culture.^[106] Born to a Jewish family, Bernstein left school at 15 and he gradually inherited the property portfolio his father had built.^[107]
• Bernard Delfont, Baron Delfont (born Boris Winogradsky; 5 September 1909 – 28 July 1994) was leading Russian-born British theatrical impresario. Delfont was born in Tokmak, Berdyansky Uyezd, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), to a Jewish family.^[108] His brothers, Lew Grade and Leslie Grade, also entered show business and formed the Grade Organisation.^[109] Delfont was instrumental in bringing Morecambe & Wise to ITV in successful TV show, Two of a Kind (1961 to 1968).^[69] He also helped the careers of Tommy Steele, Danny La Rue, Norman Wisdom and Tommy Cooper.^[110] By 1960s, the Grade brothers were all very successful and were said to have a "Gradopoly" over British popular entertainment, with Delfont the country's leading impresario; Leslie running the UK's biggest talent agency and Lew one of the major players in British commercial television.^[69][110] He was knighted^[111] and created a life peer as Baron Delfont of Stepney in Greater London.^[112][111]
• David Elstein (b. 1944), executive producer^[113] and former chair of openDemocracy. At the BBC, Elstein worked on Panorama and The Money Programme;^[114] subsequent production credits include Thames Television’s, The World at War and This Week (of which he became editor)^[115] and elsewhere Weekend World, A Week in Politics, Yuri Nosenko, KGB and Concealed Enemies. After period as an independent producer working on programmes broadcast by Channel 4, rejoined Thames Television as Director of Programmes.^[115] After serving as head of programming at BSkyB, he launched Channel 5 as its chief executive; has also been managing director of primetime productions and managing director of Brook Productions Ltd; also visiting professor at the University of Westminster, University of Stirling and University of Oxford.^[116] Elstein was the lead author of the Broadcasting Policy Group's publication, "Beyond The Charter: The BBC After 2006" (2006). He is also a director of Kingsbridge Capital Advisors Limited, and was previously a supervisory board member of two German cable companies. He has also chaired Screen Digest Ltd, DCD Media plc, Luther Pendragon Holdings, Sparrowhawk Media, the British Screen Advisory Council, the Commercial Radio Companies Association, Really Useful Theatres, XSN plc, Sports Network Group plc, Silicon Media Group, Civilian Content plc and the National Film and Television School. He was also a director of Virgin Media Inc and Marine Track Holdings plc.
• Stephen Frears (born 1941), director and producer of film and television; has received three BAFTA Awards, Primetime Emmy Award; nominated for two Academy Awards; The Daily Telegraph named Frears among the 100 most influential people in British culture;^[117] in 2009, he received the Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and received knighthood in 2023 for his contributions to film and television industries.^[118]
• Lewis Gilbert CBE ( 1920–2018) film director, producer and screenwriter who directed more than 40 films; among them Reach for the Sky, Sink the Bismarck!, Alfie, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me^[119] and Moonraker. Lewis Gilbert was born as Louis Laurie Isaacs in Clapton, London,^[120] to family of music hall performers,^[121] of Jewish descent^[122]
• Stephen Goldblatt, A.S.C., B.S.C. (born 29 April 1945) is a South African Jewish British cinematographer,^[123][124] noted for his work on numerous high-profile action films, including the first two entries in the Lethal Weapon series,^[125] as well as for his recent collaborations with director Mike Nichols^[126] and Tate Taylor. Goldblatt was born on 29 April 1945 in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a Jewish family.^[127] At the age of 18 he started working as a photojournalist for the London Sunday Times.^[128] One of Stephen Goldblatt's most significant photo shoots was of The Beatles in 1968, who had just finished recording The White Album. One of Goldblatt's shots became a two-page spread in Life magazine; others were used as album art on Beatles compilations.^[129]
• Leslie Grade (1916–1979), theatrical talent agent;^[130] co-founded Grade Organisation with elder brother, the impresario and producer Lew Grade (1906–98). During 1940s, company became UK's most successful light entertainment talent agency.^[131]
• Lew Grade, Baron Grade, OStJ (born Lev Winogradsky;^[132] 25 December 1906 – 13 December 1998) was a Russian-born British media proprietor and impresario; founded the Incorporated Television Company (ITC; commonly known as ITC Entertainment). In 1969, Grade was knighted.^[133] He was created a life peer (as Baron Grade of Elstree in the County of Hertfordshire) on 22 June 1976.^[134]
• Michael Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, CBE (b. 1943), television executive, has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1, chief executive of Channel 4, chairman of the board of governors of the BBC, and executive chairman of ITV plc.^[135] He sat as Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords from 2011 until after his appointment as Chair of Ofcom. Grade entered television industry in 1973 when he joined London Weekend Television (LWT) as deputy controller of programmes (entertainment).^[136] In 1984, Bill Cotton recruited Grade for BBC Television.^[137] where he became controller of BBC 1 on 1 September 1984,^[138][139] On 2 April 2022, Grade would took up his four year appointment as chairman of Ofcom.^[140][141] Grade was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998.^[142]
• Joseph Grossman ( 1888–1949); pioneer of the British film industry, most famous as the charismatic Studio Manager of Elstree Studios; was born in Dartford, Kent, the son of Myer Grossman and Rosa Morris, who belonged to Jewish families originally from Germany and Poland; was contemporary of Oscar Deutsch and Michael Balcon.^[143]
• David Heyman (b. 1961), film producer and founder of Heyday Films; producer of all eight installments of the Harry Potter film series; as well as prequel series, Fantastic Beasts. His work makes him the second-most commercially successful producer of all time. He is son of John Heyman, producer of the films The Go-Between and Jesus, and Norma Heyman (née Pownall), an actress, and Oscar-nominated producer of the films Dangerous Liaisons and Mrs Henderson Presents.^{[144][145][146]} His paternal grandparents were German Jews who left Nazi Germany and emigrated to England. In 1986, Heyman became creative executive at Warner Bros., and by 1987, he became vice president of United Artists.^[147]
• John Heyman ( 1933– 2017), film and TV producer also involved in television production, consulting, and film financing; in 1959 formed The International Artists Agency, representing Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Laurence Harvey, Trevor Howard, Shirley Bassey, and Burt Bacharach. In 1961, formed World Film Sales, later sold to ITC in 1973. In early 1970s, began to render financial services to major film studios, and is widely credited with creating "structured financing" in the film industry; some $4 billion has been provided to co-finance more than 150 films and television programs, including Awakenings (Columbia), Black Rain (Paramount), Chinatown (Paramount), Edward Scissorhands (Fox), Grease (Paramount), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (Warner), Heaven Can Wait (Paramount), Home Alone (Fox), Looking For Mr Goodbar (Paramount), The Man Who Would Be King (Allied Artists), Marathon Man (Paramount), The Odessa File (Columbia), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Fox), Saturday Night Fever (Paramount), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount), Trail of the Pink Panther (MGM), and Victor/Victoria (MGM).
• Erwin Hillier (1911 – 2005), cinematographer known for his work in British cinema from 1940s to 1960s;^[148] Fritz Lang at UFA studios, employed him on his classic M (1931).^[149] Soon after he moved to Britain to pursue a career in film.^[150] He worked as camera assistant for Gaumont Pictures, where he worked with Hitchcock; later moved to Elstree Studios, working on The Man Behind the Mask (1936) with Michael Powell,^[151] who noted his "insane enthusiasm". His debut as cinematographer came with Lady from Lisbon (1942).^[152] His best remembered film is The Dam Busters.^[153]
• Jeremy Isaacs (b. 1932), television producer, executive, opera manager. Following a career at Granada Television, the BBC and Thames Television, Isaacs was founding chief executive of Channel 4, won BAFTA Fellowship, British Film Institute Fellowship and International Emmy Directorate Award; was also General Director of the Royal Opera House. A recipient of many British Academy Television Awards and International Emmy Awards, Isaacs was knighted in the 1996 Birthday Honours "for services to Broadcasting and to the Arts."^[154] Isaacs was born in Glasgow from "Scottish Jewish roots".^[155] Isaacs began career in television when he joined Granada Television in Manchester as producer; was involved in creating or supervising series such as World in Action and What the Papers Say; worked for BBC's Panorama, and was producer for The World at War for Thames Television. He was Director of Programmes for Thames between 1974 and 1978. He produced Ireland: A Television History for the BBC and co-produced television documentary series Cold War (1998)^[156] and the ten-part series Millennium (1999).^[157] Isaacs was founding chief executive of Channel 4, overseeing launch and setting channel's original cultural approach with opera and foreign language film, alongside programmes with popular appeal such as game show Countdown, pop music series The Tube, and soap opera Brookside. Isaacs later became General Director of Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a role he fulfilled until 1996. Between 1997 and 2000, Isaacs was president of the Royal Television Society. He was also chairman of Artsworld before it was sold to Sky.
• Alexander Korda (1893–1956);^[158][159] Hungarian–bBritish film director, producer, and screenwriter.^[160] From 1930, Korda was active in British film industry, and soon became one of its leading figures; was founder of London Films and owner of British Lion Films; produced many outstanding classics of British film industry, including The Private Life of Henry VIII, Rembrandt, Things To Come, The Thief of Baghdad and The Third Man; became first filmmaker to receive knighthood.;^[161] was born Sándor László Kellner into a Jewish family in Pusztatúrpásztó, Austria-Hungary;^[162] his two younger brothers, Zoltan and Vincent also had careers in the film industry.
• Vincent Korda (22 June 1897 – 4 January 1979) was a Hungarian Jewish art director, later settling in Britain, and he was the younger brother of Alexander and Zoltan Korda.
• David Lan CBE, South African British playwright, theatre producer and director and a social anthropologist;^[163] was the writer in residence at the Royal Court Theatre from 1995 to 1997 and was the artistic director of the Young Vic theatre in London from 2000 until 2018. He has produced more than 200 shows.
• Mike Leigh OBE FRSL (b.1943); writer-director of Russian Jewish ancestry; has received prizes at Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, three BAFTA Awards, nominations for seven Academy Awards; received the BAFTA Fellowship; was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1993 Birthday Honours for services to film industry.^[164]
• Louis Levy (1894–1957) was an English film music director and conductor, who worked in particular on Alfred Hitchcock and Will Hay films. Levy was musical director for Gaumont's earliest sound picture, High Treason ^[165] and later became the head of the music department for all Gainsborough Pictures productions.^[166] Levy became general musical director for the Associated British Picture Corporation,^[167] and was head of music at Elstree Studios, where the films he worked on included Moby Dick (1956).^[168]
• Sam Mendes CBE (born 1 August 1965^[169]) stage director, producer, screenwriter. In 2000, Mendes was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and he was knighted in the 2020 New Years Honours List. In 2000, Mendes was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg, Germany. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain.^[170][171] In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 15 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".^[172]
• Dan Patterson(b. 1960)^[173] television producer and writer, best known as co-creator, alongside Mark Leveson, and producer of both the British and American incarnations of the comedy improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the British satirical comedy panel show Mock the Week. Patterson is married to Laura Marks, appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2015 New Year Honours;^[174] The Jewish Chronicle named her one of the ten most influential British Jews in "The JC Power 100";^[175] was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to inter-faith relations, Holocaust education and commemoration, and women's empowerment.^[176]
• Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988), Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer; best known for film collaborations with Michael Powell, a partnership known as the Archers; produced 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (US: Stairway to Heaven, 1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951); was born in Miskolc, in the Kingdom of Hungary, of Jewish heritage.^[14] His grandsons are Andrew Macdonald (producer) and Kevin Macdonald (director)
• Stephen Poliakoff CBE, FRSL (born 1952), playwright, director and screenwriter^[177] described as UK's "pre-eminent TV dramatist" who had "inherited Dennis Potter's crown";^[178] maternal great-grandfather was Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling.^[179]
• David Puttnam, CBE, HonFRSA, HonFRPS, MRIA (/ˈpʌtnəm/; b. 1941), film producer;former member of the House of Lords; received BAFTA and BAFTA Fellowship; sat on Labour benches in House of Lords; appointed chair to the select committee on democracy and digital technologies; was chairman and CEO of Columbia Pictures;^[180] is President of the Film Distributors’ Association; Chair of the TSL Advisory Board;^[181] Chair of Nord Anglia International School,^[182] in 1997, entered House of Lords as life peer;^[183] was Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma);^[184] was chairman of National Film and Television School; was UK president of UNICEF and remains ambassador.^[185]
• Walter Stern (b. 1965) music video film director,^[186] worked with The Prodigy, Massive Attack, David Bowie, Madonna, Volkswagen Golf, collecting Golden Lion for Volkswagen "Heaven" at Cannes;^[187] has created advertisements, film and video for Coca-Cola, Caffreys, BBC, Orange, Adidas and Diet Coke; his work for the Department for Transport, won him award at BTAA Craft for Best Video Post Production; other advertising work includes "Bubbles" for Vodafone, a Transport for London spot for M&C Saatchi and Johnnie Walker film for BBH.^[188][189]
• John Sutro (1903–1985); film producer; member of the jury at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival;^[190] was close friend of Mitford sisters and was part of group of artists and intellectuals with whom they regularly associated in 1920s and 1930s.^[191] Sutro was Jewish.^[192]

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