Michael Apted was an English-born director, producer, and writer.

The prolific director's career began in television at Granada Television in Manchester where he started worked as a trainee in research. One of his first projects at Granada would also become his most beloved Up series of documentaries which followed the lives of children across the socioeconomic spectrum, beginning at age seven and interviewing them in seven-year intervals.

During his stint at Granada, Apted was at the helm of a number of popular series including Coronation Street and would continue to work in television for six decades, directing episodes of City' 68, Parkin's Patch, The Lovers, Play for Today, New York News, Ray Donovan, Masters of Sex, and Bloodline.

No stranger to the big screen, he also directed the Oscar-nominated film Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Gorky Park (1983), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Class Action (1991), Nell (1994), The World is Not Enough (1999), Enigma (2001), Enough (2002), and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).

Apted died January 7, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. He was 79.