My father, Alan Afriat, who has died aged 88, was a producer, director and editor of television programmes.
Among other things, he was supervising editor of Thames TV’s acclaimed documentary The World at War across 26 editions of the series in 1973 and 1974, spending much of the four years previous to that cataloguing and editing millions of feet of film before cutting and pasting strips of celluloid by hand. He won a Bafta in 1974 for that work, which is widely regarded as a masterpiece of editing.
He also edited episodes of the TV documentary series This Week, for Thames, as well as the TV movie Warrior (1975). In addition he was producer and director of Casting Off, a 1988 situation comedy about five friends who set up their own knitting company.
Alan was born in Golders Green, north London, the youngest of the five children of Messod Afriat, a merchant from Morocco, and his wife, Bertha (nee Anahory). His parents named him Alan in memory of his older brother, who had died when struck by a car while crossing the road.
After attending Mill Hill school, in 1955 Alan did his two years of national service with the King’s Troop in the Royal Horse Artillery, where his skills as a trumpeter and his jockey-like build were an asset.
Once discharged, he began to study film-making at the London Film School before joining Rediffusion as a trainee editor in 1959. He married Monica Taupin (a cousin of Bernie Taupin, the lyricist) the following year.
Rediffusion became Thames Television in 1968, by which time Alan had been made an editor. He went on to edit and direct a number of programmes, including The King’s Troop (1977), about his old regiment, and Minorities: Now That the Buffalo’s Gone (1969), a documentary on the past and present of the Native American that was narrated by Marlon Brando. Later he recalled how Brando had waived his fee but charged a small fortune in expenses for his stay at the London Hilton, rarely leaving his room except to do recordings.
Alan remained at Thames in his various roles until 1988, when he became a freelance editor and director, working well into old age. In 1996 his sister Natalie’s former pupil, the Venezuelan assassin Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, AKA Carlos the Jackal, asked him to make a documentary about his life, but he declined politely.
Alan is survived by Monica, their three children, Nicholas, Dominic and me, six grandchildren and a great-grandson. His siblings predeceased him.