Colin Welland

Born "Colin Williams" on July 4, 1934, in Leigh, near Manchester, England. Because Colin as a child showed early talent in drawing and painting, his father wanted him to become an art teacher. "I wanted to go on the stage, you see, but my dad had his feet firmly on the ground," Welland said on the BBC radio show "Desert Island Discs" in 1973. "He said, be an art teacher first ... and if you don't like that, then go on to the stage. So, that's what I did." Welland joined a theater company in Manchester, changed his last name Williams to Welland, and in the late 1960s appeared on British TV shows. His big break as a 'Colin Welland' film actor was playing the role of a teacher in the 1969 dramatic film "Kes" for which he won a British Academy Film Award. He went on to play a reverend in Sam Peckinpah's violent "Straw Dogs" (1971). Welland wrote stage plays and for several TV series in the late 1960s and 1970s. In his Oscar speech, he thanked "Briish television, where I learned my craft." Following "Chariots of Fire," he received writing credits on feature films "Twice in a Lifetime" (1985), "A Dry White Season" (1989) and "War of the Buttons" (19940. He had acting roles into the late 1990s. Colin (Williams) Welland, 81, died November 2, 2015, suffering from Alzheimer's disease for several years. He is survived by his wife Patricia, four children and six grandchildren.

Welland started in television in 1962 with his role of Constable David Graham in the long-running police serial Z Cars (1962). With its groundbreaking grittiness the series introduced a new realism to the genre.

Welland stayed with the show until 1965, by which time he was a household name. In the 70s, Welland combined careers as an actor and writer.

Producer David Puttnam was looking for a story in the mold of "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), regarding someone who follows their conscience; he felt sports provided clear situations in this sense, and happened upon the story by accident while thumbing through an Olympic reference book in a rented house in Los Angeles. "Chariots of Fire" producer David Puttnam asked Welland to look into the stories of two runners in the 1924 Olympics: Scottish missionary Eric Liddell, who refused to run in races on Sundays, and Jewish Cambridge student Harold Abrahams, who battled anti-Semitism. Screen-writer Colin Welland spent months researching their stories, even taking out news-paper advertisements in London seeking memories, people who had participated in the Olympic Games held in 1924 Paris. Many athletes were still living, he spoke to several athletes, but one of the most meaningful finds was a stack of letters written by an Olympian to his family; Aubrey Montague's son sent him copies of the letters his father had sent home - which gave Welland something to use as a narrative bridge in the film. The letters expressed an unabashed love of sports for sports alone. "I was absolutely amazed at the naiveté of them," Welland said in a 1981 New York Times interview. "A 21-year-old man, writing in terms that in today's world would be naive to the point of being ridiculous." The letters gave Welland the emotional tone for the screenplay. "Colin's writing has a great lack of embarrassment," the producer David Pittman told the L.A. Times in 1981. "English screen-writing is cool, it's blue if you like. Colin's writing isn't purple, but it has a lot of red and yellow." Having completed his first draft, screenwriter Colin Welland was unable to conceive a title for the film beyond the somewhat uninteresting "Runners". The inspiration came one Sunday evening when Welland turned on the television to the BBC's religious music series "Songs of Praise" (1961) - featuring the stirring hymn "Jerusalem" (written by William Blake and set to music by C.H.H. Parry), its chorus including the words "Bring me my chariot of fire"; the writer leapt up to his feet and shouted to his wife Patricia, "I've got it, Pat! 'Chariots of Fire'!".

In a career of over 30 years this Lancashire-born former art teacher has achieved great success in acting, both in television and film and writing, for television, film and stage. His first film appearance is perhaps still his best-loved, the sympathetic Mr Farthing in Kes (1969), for which he won a BAFTA.

In this time he had also been writing and appearing (sometimes both) in several plays and TV movies - he was voted Best TV Playwright in Britain in 1970, 1973 and 1974.

On the film side he put in a nice turn as a laconic policeman in Villain (1971) and featured in the controversial Straw Dogs (1971) and in an episode of the popular TV series The Sweeney: Faces (1975) and its big-screen adaptation Sweeney! (1977).

In 1972 he won a BAFTA for Play for Today: Kisses at Fifty (1973). His plays were known for their earthy humour and working-class themes.

He reappeared with the other stars from the early years of Z Cars in the show's finale in 1978.

In 1979 he put in one of his most memorable TV performances in Dennis Potter's award-winning play Play for Today: Blue Remembered Hills (1979) which recalled the days of the author's childhood. Playing the role of a child, Welland cavorted gleefully around woods and fields crammed into a pair of boy's shorts.

His first film as a writer was the successful John Schlesinger wartime culture clash drama Yanks (1979) and after this he decided to focus on his writing.

He followed Yanks up with the multi award-winning, box office smash Chariots of Fire (1981), for which he won the Best Screenplay Oscar.

Colin made his famous boast of "The British Are Coming" at the 1982 Academy Awards where he received the Best Writing award for Chariots of Fire (1981).

If his heralded arrival of the Brits didn't quite materialise, Welland did write some other worthy films - Twice in a Lifetime (1985) was an effective blue-collar drama starring Gene Hackman, A Dry White Season (1989) starred Donald Sutherland and dealt with the cruelties imposed by apartheid in South Africa (co-written with Euzhan Palcy) and War of the Buttons (1994) was an offbeat and entertaining tale of warring children.

He has put in occasional acting appearances over the years and was last seen in Bramwell: Our Brave Boys (1998) and Bramwell: Loose Women (1998) in 1998.