Sam Mendes – the man with a golden talent

 
Sam Mendes took home best director for his epic war drama 1917 which was also crowned best film drama at the Golden Globes.  Born one day after J.K. Rowling on 1 August 1965, he had a novelist mother and academic father, directed plays when at Cambridge, and later at the Royal Shakespeare Company and Chichester. He has a special place in my respect for his regeneration of the tiny Donmar Theatre in London in the early 1990s where he put on a stream of superlative serious plays. As we