Richard Curtis is one of the UK's best known writers and filmmakers with the likes of Four Weddings and A Funeral and Notting Hill under his belt.
After being born in New Zealand Curtis moved to England at the age of eleven and went on to study English Literature and Language at Oxford.
He began his career writing, mainly for television, and he became a regular contributor to Not the Nine O'Clock News, which starred Rowan Atkinson.
This kicked off a long a very fruitful collaboration with the comedy actor as the pair went on, along with Ben Elton, to work on Blackadder, a comedy series that follows the Blackadder family in four different eras of British history.
Blackadder ran for four series between 1983 to 1989. Curtis and Atkinson went on to collaborate further on another comedy show Mr Bean.
In 1994, with the help of Dawn French and co, Curtis brought everyone's favourite vicar to our television screen in the form of the Vicar of Dibley. The series has gone on to become one of the most popular sitcoms ending in 2007 with Geraldine getting married.
In 1989 Curtis tried his hand at writing movies with The Tall Guy, which starred Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson, but it was his 1994 movie Four Weddings and A Funeral that really put him on the movie map as a writer.
It was the first of several project between Curtis and Hugh Grant, this film launching his acting career.
Charles (Hugh Grant) is a confirmed British bachelor with a colourful romantic background who meets the perfect woman, Carrie (Andie MacDowell), at a friend's wedding.
However, Charles's hopes of romance are dashed when Carrie announces she must return to America the next morning. The two continue to cross paths at other people's weddings, never finding each other at a time when both are single.
As all of Charles's friends find love, he's left wondering if he will ever be the one going to the altar. The film was a massive box office success and is the second biggest grossing British movie of all time, taking $244 at the global box office.
Bean was next for Curtis, on which he was writer and co-executive producer before he teamed up with grant again for Notting Hill.
The return of Grant as a bumbling English man, along with some Hollywood glamour in the form of Julia Roberts, made Notting Hill a box office hit, it was the highest grossing British movie of 1999.
More writing credits followed as he adapted Bridget Jones, based on the Helen Fielding novel, which was a big success but he moved behind the camera, as he re-teamed with Working Title for Love Actually.
Everywhere you look, love is causing chaos. From the bachelor Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who, on his first day at 10 Downing Street, falls in love with the girl who brings him his tea, to a hopeless sandwich delivery guy who doesn't think he has a chance with the girls in the U.K., so he heads for Wisconsin.
From aging rock stars, to a stony headmistress, to a monolingual Portuguese housemaid--love arrives in many forms, shapes and sizes.
Here, ten separate, but intertwining, stories of love all lead up to a big climax on Christmas Eve, proving that love is the driving force in all of these people's lives.
History repeated itself and the film was a huge success and a string of award nominations and wins, including a Golden Globe nod for Best Screenplay followed.
After returning to Bridget Jones and Mr Bean in a writing and producing role Curtis has moved back behind the camera in this week's release The Boat That Rocked.
"The Boat That Rocked" is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the '60s and pop music.
It's about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz from a large rusty fishing trawler moored off the coast of England.
The Boat That Rocked is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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