LONDON - David Mitton, a director and screenwriter who adapted the children's favourite "Thomas the Tank Engine" for television, has died at the age of 69.
Mitton suffered a heart attack May 16 in London and died May 23 after spending a week on a life support machine, Michele Fabian-Jones of his production company, Pineapple Squared Entertainment, said Thursday. Born near Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1939, Mitton served in the Royal Air Force before starting a career in children's television in the early 1960s.
He worked as a special effects technician for Gerry Anderson - creator of innovative marionette adventure series "Captain Scarlet" and "Thunderbirds" - before co-founding the animation company Clearwater Films in the 1980s.
In 1984, Mitton directed a pilot for a show based on Rev. Wilbert Vere Awdry's stories about Thomas, a plucky blue train engine, and his locomotive friends. The show became an international hit and, later, a marketing phenomenon, with a string of spin-off toys and other merchandise.
Mitton went on to direct more than 180 episodes of "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends," and wrote many of them. He was a consultant on the 2000 spinoff feature film "Thomas and the Magic Railroad," narrated by American actor Alec Baldwin.
Mitton also devised the children's show "Tugs," about a team of tugboats, and was working on the animated series "Adventures on Orsum Island" for Pineapple Squared when he died.
He is survived by his wife and by a son from a previous marriage. A funeral was held last week.
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