Rubeigh James Minney (29 August 1895 – 5 January 1979) was a British film producer, journalist, playwright, editor and author.
[1] Often known as "RJ", he was educated at St. Paul's School, Darjeeling, and studied history at King's College London,[2] but left in 1914 to join the Indian Army.
[3] In London, he was a drama critic for the Daily Chronicle, Sunday News and Everybody's Weekly (1925–1935); he was also director of Everybody's Publication Ltd (until 1935), where he eventually became editor.
Travel was one of his great interests: he went to Tibet on horseback across the Himalayas and flew across India in a plane that arrived in a packing case.
He also wrote Carve Her Name with Pride (1956) about the brave secret agent Violette Szabo, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross, and which was later turned into a successful film starring Virginia McKenna.
Another of his non-fiction works was I Shall Fear No Evil, a harrowing but inspiring account of Dr Alina Brewda, who survived Auschwitz concentration camp and The Holocaust, which was published in 1966.
Minney was hired to write the screenplay for this 1935 adaptation by producer Darryl F. Zanuck; however, he did not settle in Hollywood, and returned to Britain.
With Sir Osbert Sitwell, he wrote Gentle Caesar, a biography of Tsar Nicholas II, which was first produced at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham in 1943, and Red Horizon.
These films helped boost the careers of new stars including Stewart Granger, James Mason, Patricia Roc and Margaret Lockwood.