Producer
21 February 1939 to 29 June 2022
A British producer, who started out at BBC radio in the 1960s before going on to make several influential documentaries with former BAFTA chair, John Willis. Among these were Johnny Go Home (1975), which won a BAFTA; the BAFTA-nominated Goodbye Longfellow Road (1977); and The Secret Hospital (1979). Deakin also worked with David Frost on his interviews with the Shah of Iran and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin; and then with Jonathan Dimbleby on In Evidence: The Bomb (1980) and The Eagle and the Bear (1981). He would later help launch breakfast magazine show TV-am in 1983, before deciding to become an independent producer again a year into the job.
Read Michael Deakin's Guardian obituary
