Mike Leigh

Born: February 20 1943

Where: Salford, Lancashire, UK

The stage, TV and film director is noted for his style, which he likes to refer to as "heightened realism."

Relying heavily on unscripted improvisation under his supervision, his successes have included Life is Sweet, Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake.

A creative force in London's experimental fringe theater since the 1960s, Leigh earned critical acclaim for his numerous TV films, particularly Abigail's Party.

After making his feature debut with Bleak Moments in 1971, Leigh took a 17-year hiatus, working exclusively for British stage and TV.

He returned to films, winning international attention for 1988's High Hopes, a grim portrait of Thatcherite London.

Leigh's low-key style and his knack for offbeat characterization and warm humor all enriched his surprisingly life-affirming 1991 comedy Life Is Sweet.

However, his next effort, Naked, was a stark portrait of one man's (David Thewlis) journey into the bowels of his soul.

Critically acclaimed in the USA and at the Cannes Film Festival (where he was named Best Director and Thewlis Best Actor), the film was largely panned in England for its perceived misogyny.

In 1996, Leigh directed what many critics felt was his best film till then - Secrets & Lies.

The winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or, it focused on two women, a 20-something black optometrist adoptee (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and a heavy-drinking middle-aged working-class white woman (Brenda Blethyn), the former's birth mother.

The film earned five Oscar nominations, including two for Leigh's directions and screenplay.

His follow-up, Career Girls, was thought by some to be a disappointment but Leigh triumphed with Topsy Turvy, inspired by the lives of the operetta writing team of Gilbert and Sullivan.

All or Nothing, starring regular Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville, saw Leigh returning to more familiar territory.

However, it was with 2005's Vera Drake - starring Imelda Staunton as a backstreet abortionist - that Leigh reached what many regarded a career high, although he lost out on Best Director Oscar to Clint Eastwood.