By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Paul Almond, a Canadian-born filmmaker whose landmark 1964 documentary "Seven Up!" inspired an extended look at British children's unfolding lives, has died. Almond was 83.
Almond died of complications from heart disease at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on April 9, his longtime friend David Stansfield said Thursday.
"He wanted all his life to be a poet. But he had to earn a living and ended up being a producer and director," Stansfield said.
The Montreal native started his career at the CBC and went on to produce and direct more than 100 dramas for the Canadian network as well as U.S. and U.K. broadcasters, according to Almond's website. He also wrote and adapted plays for TV.
He brought the works of Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams and other famed writers to TV, and his projects featured future stars including Sean Connery, Maggie Smith and William Shatner, Stansfield said.
Almond, also a big-screen filmmaker, took great pride in the movies "Isabel" (1968), "Act of the Heart" (1970) and "Journey" (1972), which he wrote and directed, his friend said. The movies starred Almond's then-wife, actress Genevieve Bujold.
It was in England that "Seven Up!" emerged from a pub discussion in which Almond observed that Britain's social class system was firmly entrenched. His companion cited the maxim, "Give me a child until he is 7, and I will give you the man," and the idea for the project was born, Almond's website recounts.
The critically praised "Seven Up!" in which 14 children from different social and economic backgrounds talk about their lives and futures, ended up being the foundation for a continuing look at them by filmmaker Michael Apted.
Apted, a researcher on the original film, revisited its subjects every seven years for the documentaries including "7 Plus Seven" in 1970, "21 Up" in 1977 to the latest, "56 Up," released in 2012.
Almond, who received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Canada and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada, turned to writing full-time in 1990. His published works included the "Alford Saga," eight adventure novels based on family history.
His survivors include his wife, Joan; Matthew Almond, his son with Bujold; as well as stepchildren and grandchildren.
A memorial is planned for April 26, what would have been Almond's 84th birthday, at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in Malibu, California, the seaside city in which lived, Stansfield said.
Austrian activist wins privacy/targeted advertising case against Meta over personal data on sexual orientation
The European Union's top court said Friday that social media company Meta can't use public information about a user's sexual orientation obtained outside its platforms for personalized advertising under the bloc's strict data privacy rules.
The decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg is a victory for Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been a thorn in the side of Big Tech companies over their compliance with 27-nation bloc's data privacy rules.
The EU court issued its ruling after Austria's supreme court asked for guidance in Schrems' case on how to apply the privacy rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Schrems had complained that Facebook had processed personal data including information about his sexual orientation to target him with online advertising, even though he had never disclosed on his account that he was gay. The only time he had publicly revealed this fact was during a panel discussion.
"An online social network such as Facebook cannot use all of the personal data obtained for the purposes of targeted advertising, without restriction as to time and without distinction as to type of data," the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.
Even though Schrems revealed he was gay in the panel discussion, that "does not authorise the operator of an online social network platform to process other data relating to his sexual orientation, obtained, as the case may be, outside that platform, with a view to aggregating and analysing those data, in order to offer him personalised advertising."
Meta said it was awaiting publication of the court's full judgment and that it "takes privacy very seriously."
"Everyone using Facebook has... Read More