KINGSTON, Jamaica -- The man who helped make a household name globally of the movie, "The Harder They Come," is no more.
Legendary filmmaker Perry Henzell passed away yesterday in St. Elizabeth after a fight with cancer. He was 70. Henzell co-authored, directed and produced the hit film that featured singer Jimmy Cliff as Ivan, an innocent country ‘bwoy’ who goes to the city looking to make it big as a reggae star. But instead of stardom he finds poverty, betrayal and despair, before becoming a notorious gunman and dying in a hail of police bullets.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, lauded Henzell for making a sterling contribution to the development of arts in Jamaica and said the country had lost a very talented son.
Henzell’s second film 'No Place Like Home,' was set to premier in Jamaica at the Flashpoint Film Festival today, Friday, December 1 at The Caves, Negril. 'No Place Like Home' was first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September. His next major production was set to be putting his novel, 'Power Game', on the screen.
Henzell was born 1936 in Port Maria, Jamaica and was raised on Caymanas Estate. He attended Jamaica College until he was sent to school in England at fourteen. He then entered McGill University in Montreal at the age of seventeen and began working in the drama department of the BBC television studios in London at the age of twenty. He returned to Jamaica at the age of twenty-three and founded Vista Productions, going on to make over 200 commercials and established a studio in Kingston. His first feature film, The Harder They Come, was released in 1972. During the 1980s, he worked on numerous screenplays for other people and directed a full-scale musical on the life of Marcus Garvey. Power Game, his first novel was the political thriller Power Game, which was published in 1982. This second novel, Cane, a historical drama, was published in 2003.
Henzell is survived by his wife, three children and four grandchildren.
