Peter Whitehead: Chronology

1937 Peter Lorrimer Whitehead is born in Liverpool, England.

1940 Moves to Southport after father leaves for Iran.

1941 Moves to Leyland, where mother works in factory making Spitfire airplanes. Attends Leyland Methodist School.

1943 Moves to Carnforth, Lancashire.

1948 Moves to London. Attends St. Leonard's Church of England Primary School in Streatham, where he takes his 11 Plus exams.

1948 Attends Tooting Bec Grammar School.

1949 Attends Ashville College, Harrogate.

1956-1958 Completes National Ser vice.

1958-1961 Studies physics, math, history, and philosophy of science, physiology, and crystallography at Peter house College, Cambridge. Works part-time in the Medical Council Research Unit in Cavendish Laboratory as technical assistant for Francis Crick, John Kendrew, Sidney Brenner, and others working on molecular structures with X-ray photography methods.

1962 Joins the embryonic Film Department at the Slade School of Art under Thorold Dickinson.

1963 Completes short films The Theft and Parallels.

1964 Works with the Nuffield Foundation and makes The Perception of Life. During this year, Whitehead is also employed as a freelance cameraman for Italian and Greek tele vi sion.

June 11, 1965 Films the International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall, which yields Wholly Communion.

April 1966 Time magazine cover story "London: The Swinging City" inspires Whitehead's film Tonite Let's All Make Love in London.

1966 Completes Charlie Is My Darling with The Rolling Stones. Wholly Communion wins the Gold Medal at the Mannheim Film Festival. Lorrimer Books is established and publishes a screenplay of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and Wholly Communion, a book to accompany the film.

1966-1967 Produces a series of promotional films for performers, including the Dubliners, Jimi Hendrix, Nico, and the Small Faces.

1967 Completes Benefit of the Doubt, based on Peter Brook's Royal Shakespeare Company production of US. Also completes Tonite Let's All Make Love in London.

September 1967 Benefit of the Doubt and Tonite appear at the New York Film Festival under the title "The London Scene" and at the London Film Festival as "Two Films by Peter Whitehead."

October 1967 Begins work on "The New York Scene," a film that eventually becomes The Fall.

April 1968 Martin Luther King is assassinated. Students occupy Columbia University.

June 1968 Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Whitehead returns to London and appears in Nothing to Do with Me, a short film by Anthony Stern.

1969 Completes The Fall. Initial screenings include the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London.

1970 Films Led Zeppelin at the Royal Albert Hall. Establishes Narcis Publishing. Publishes the film journal Afterimage.

1971 Narcis publishes Penny Slinger's 50%—The Visible Woman.

1973 Collaborates with Niki de Saint Phalle on Daddy.

1976 Makes Fire in the Water with Natalie Delon. Works again with Niki de Saint Phalle on her film Un rêve plus long que la nuit.

1977 Empty Eye publishes the Whitehead/Slinger photography project An Exorcism, initially begun in 1970.

1980-1991 Creates, directs, and operates the Al-Faisal Falcon Centre, Abha, Saudi Arabia.

1990 Publishes Nora and . . .

1991 Returns to England after outbreak of the Gulf War.

1994 Publishes The Risen.

1996 Publishes Pulp Election: The Booker Prize Fix. Creation Press publishes Baby Doll, a collection of erotic photographs.

1998 Appears in The Falconer, a film by Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit.

1999 Publishes Tonite Let's All Make Love in London.

2000 Nohzone .com goes online.

2002 Reality Film retrospective: "Peter Whitehead: The Complete Retrospective, 1964-1969."

2006 Reality/Maysles Film Institute/Sticking Place retrospective: "The Word and the Image: The Films of Peter Whitehead." This program also includes Paul Cronin's In the Beginning Was the Image: Conversations with Peter Whitehead.

2007 Publishes the novel Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts.

2007-2008 Lives and works in Vienna to adapt the novel into a film.

2009 The film Terrorism Considered as One of the Fine Arts has its premiere at the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale).