BRITAIN: The Oscar-winning film producer David Puttnam has been suffering from ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, for the past 16 years. The disease was partly responsible for his departure from Columbia Pictures in Hollywood.
Lord Puttnam was first hit by a bout of ME that lasted six months in 1988, triggered he believes by a virus together with the strain he had been under for the previous 10 years when he produced some of his finest films, including Chariots of Fire, the Killing Fields, Local Hero, Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone.
Speaking for the first time about the much misunderstood disease at the request of the charity Action for ME, of which he is patron, he said he felt that he should have retired after he finished the Killing Fields in 1984.
"I was so exhausted when I finished the Killing Fields to which I gave everything I had in me - everything I had learned, everything I knew, everything."
Instead, he made the Mission and was head-hunted to lead Columbia Pictures.
He planned to make high-quality, artistic films with social and political content, but fell out with the Hollywood commercial film establishment. - (Guardian Service)