(1960), Alfie (1966), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989), as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)[1] and Moonraker (1979).

Later Alexander Korda offered to send him to RADA, but Gilbert chose to study direction instead, assisting Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939).

He was eventually seconded to the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces, where his commanding officer was William Keighley, an American film director, who allowed Gilbert to take on much of his film-making work.

After the war, he continued to write and direct documentary shorts for Gaumont British, before entering low budget feature film production.

Examples include Reach for the Sky (1956) (based on the life of air ace Douglas Bader), Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) (the story of SOE agent Violette Szabo) and Sink the Bismarck!

Gilbert's wife Hylda discovered the play by Bill Naughton when she visited the hair salon and sat next to an actress who was in a production.

Gilbert said Alfie was only made because the low budget was "the sort of money Paramount executives normally spend on cigar bills".

In 1967, Gilbert was chosen to direct Lionel Bart's musical version of Oliver!, but he was already contracted to another project and had to pull out; he recommended Carol Reed, who took over.

[14] After the high production costs of Moonraker and the financial failure of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, United Artists was unable to afford to hire him to direct the next Bond film For Your Eyes Only.

[13] In the 1980s, he returned to more small-scale dramas with film versions of Willy Russell's plays Educating Rita (1983)[15] and Shirley Valentine (1989).

[18][19] Gilbert was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours for services to the film industry.