After the death of Roy Kinnear on the shooting of The Return of the Musketeers (1989), Lester decided to quit directing.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 581-586. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.
He entered a university at 15 years old, and after receiving a degree in clinical psychology, he graduated at 19 years old.
Ironically, he claimed to have never even heard of the Superman character before being hired to work on the films due to comic books not being allowed in his house as a child. This led to many fans and critics suspecting and in some cases accusing Lester of not understanding and therefore not respecting the Superman character, especially judging by the satirical tone and ultimate box office failure of Superman III (1983).
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966
Started his creative career as TV director at CBS' WCAU-TV station, Philadelphia
While working on the parts of Superman (1978) that would be incorporated in the sequel Superman II (1980), cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth died unexpectedly on October 28, 1978. When Lester took over the directorial reins from Richard Donner, he decided to give the sequel a comic-book look rather than the stately, mythic look that Donner and Unsworth had crafted for the first movie, and intended for the sequel. He scrapped much of Unsworth's footage and hired British cameraman Robert Paynter, who had worked with potboiler director Michael Winner perfecting a style that complimented Winner's propensity for comic book-style violence. Lester was not sympathetic to the epic look that Donner had given the original "Superman" (1978), saying that he did not want to do "the David Lean thing". Lester decided on creating a comic book-style that would evoke Superman's roots in comic books. Lester deliberately wanted to break the stylistic "American epic" mold created by Donner and, with Paynter, set out to recreate the look and feel o