Peter Yates (July 24, 1929 - January 9, 2011) was a British film director.
Yates started out working in the theater and TV (directing episodes of The Saint and Danger Man) before becoming an assistant director on such movies as The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Sons and Lovers, and The Guns of Navarone, and then started to direct his own movies. His first movie, Summer Holiday, a vehicle for Cliff Richard, didn't attract much attention, but his third movie, Robbery, a heavily fictionalized version of a train robbery in 1963, which came out in 1965, was critically acclaimed in the U.S., and was seen by, among others, screenwriter Alan R. Trustman. Trustman persuaded Steve McQueen (actor) to see the movie, and Yates was hired to direct Bullitt, which established his career in Hollywood.
Though Yates may have made his reputation on crime movies, in fact, he directed a variety of movies, including comedies (Mother, Jugs & Speed), adventure movies (The Deep), Coming of Age comedy-dramas (Breaking Away), prestige dramas (The Dresser) and courtroom dramas (Suspect). His last projects were Made-for-TV movies of Don Quixote and A Separate Peace. Yates also was a racing manager for two years for famed Formula One driver Stirling Moss
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Yates was married to Virginia Pope from 1960 until his death of heart failure in 2011, and they had two children.
Movies directed by Peter Yates with their own page:
- Summer Holiday (1963)
- Bullitt (1968)
- Murphy's War (1971)
- The Hot Rock (1972)
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
- Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976)
- The Deep (1977)
- Breaking Away (1979)
- Krull (1983)
- The Dresser (1983)
- Suspect (1987)
- An Innocent Man (1989)
