OSCAR winner Sir Anthony Hopkins, Academy award winner Dame Judi Dench, and four-time BAFTA winner Sir John Hurt all have something in common: they have all worked with Bradford Leigh resident and director Michael Darlow.

The 81-year-old has directed, written and produced award-winning documentaries, arts, music and drama programmes for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, winning BAFTAs, an Emmy and a host of other accolades.

For more than 20 years, Mr Darlow has lived in Leigh Grove, after a glittering career spanning 40 years and nearly as many destinations, including America, Mexico, India, Australia, South Africa and much of Europe.

His career began at a drama school in Bradford and then on to the Northern Theatre School in the early 1950s, where he met one of the world’s leading classical dance innovators, Rudolf Laban.

In the following years Mr Darlow served in the RAF as a radio operator, and went on to perform in the West End before getting his big break in directing a film that was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival and then the BBC itself.

That project proved to be the springboard for Mr Darlow, who was soon snapped up by the BBC and worked under John Boorman in the 1960s.

From there he directed critically-acclaimed programmes Crime And Punishment with Sir John Hurt, Make And Break with Dame Judi Dench and Little Eyolf with Sir Anthony Hopkins.

He also played a major role in historical projects such as Bomber Harris, Suez 1956 and World At War, where he interviewed Adolf Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge and Heinrich Himmler’s chief of staff Karl Wolff.

“One standout moment was filming the Johnny Cash In San Quentin film in an American prison,” said Mr Darlow, a fellow of the Royal Television Society and holder of the RTS’s silver medal for services to television.

“The guards said ‘we will not be able to protect you from the inmates’. These were some of the biggest criminals in the world, by the way.

The guard said to make a deal with the gang. So I told some of the meanest crooks in there they could sit in the front row so they could be in the film and they agreed. We got out of there quick, mind.”

Since the turn of the century, Mr Darlow has set up his own company, Try Again, and made a film called A Lot Of Living, narrated by Dame Judi Dench, illustrating the work of Dorothy House in Winsley.

“It has been a bit ridiculous and incredibly wonderful. It has been a bit daft and then unforgettable. I have met some interesting folk, some remarkable ones and some extraordinary people - it has been quite a ride,” said Mr Darlow.