Born: 8th November 1956 (as Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis)
Episodes Broadcast: 2010

Although he was born in Wellington, New Zealand, Richard Curtis' family moved frequently during his childhood, as dictated by the demands of his father's work as an executive with the consumer goods company Unilever. After periods in Sweden and the Phillipines, they finally settled in England when Curtis was eleven years old. While boarding at Harrow School, he distinguished himself by winning permission to direct the anti-establishment play The Erpingham Camp, and by banning the practice of “fagging”, in which younger boys were mandated to serve the elder students. Curtis then completed a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. While writing and acting for the Oxford Revue, he met Rowan Atkinson, who asked him to contribute material to his radio programme The Atkinson People. The segments, broadcast in 1979, were Curtis' first professional work, and his association with Atkinson soon brought him over to television, writing for Not The Nine O'Clock News.

Starting in 1983, Curtis and Atkinson collaborated on the historical comedy The Black Adder. Curtis also wrote for shows like Spitting Image and Jackanory, while the 1989 Jeff Goldblum comedy The Tall Guy was his first movie script. In 1985, Curtis and Lenny Henry co-founded the biennial Comic Relief charity appeal, the highlight of which was the enormously successful Red Nose Day telecast. Attracting the involvement of a wide array of famous faces, Comic Relief would ultimately raise well in excess of one billion pounds for a variety of causes, and become an annual event starting in 2021.

The screenplay for Four Weddings And A Funeral earned Curtis an Academy Award nomination

By the late Eighties, The Black Adder and its sequels were widely considered television classics, but this was nothing compared to the success of Curtis and Atkinson's next venture. Premiering in 1990, Mr Bean became an international sensation. Curtis then earned further notice with his second movie screenplay: Four Weddings And Funeral, which starred Hugh Grant. Greeted by enormous popular and critical acclaim following its release in 1994, it earned Curtis an Academy Award nomination. The same year, he created the popular Dawn French sitcom The Vicar Of Dibley.

Now principally writing for the cinema, Curtis enjoyed a string of hit screenplays: the Mr Bean spin-off Bean, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary and its sequel. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000. Curtis moved into the director's chair for the 2003 hit Love Actually, working from his own script. Occasional television work after the turn of the century included an episode of Casualty and the pilot for The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Curtis was again both writer and director for the 2009 movie The Boat That Rocked.

Back in 1999, Steven Moffat had contributed the Doctor Who spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death to that year's edition of Red Nose Day. Now Doctor Who's showrunner, he offered Curtis the opportunity to write for Matt Smith's first season as the Eleventh Doctor -- despite knowing that Curtis was not particularly enamoured with the show. However, Curtis happened to watch the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special, The Next Doctor, with its co-star, his friend and neighbour David Morrissey. The experience convinced him to accept Moffat's invitation, and the result was the stirring Vincent And The Doctor.

Curtis' other work during the 2010s included another dalliance with time travel, writing and directing the 2013 film About Time. He wrote two other screenplays -- the crime thriller Trash and the Beatles-themed Yesterday -- and contributed to Steven Spielberg's War Horse. Curtis also helped conceive the story for the Abba-inspired sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. His television credits were limited to two telefilms: Mary And Martha and the Roald Dahl adaptation Esio Trot. Curtis' longtime partner is broadcaster Emma Freud, who has worked as a script editor or associate producer on all of his projects -- including Vincent And The Doctor -- since the early Nineties. Together, they have a daughter named Scarlett and sons Jake, Charlie and Spike.