page_title: Personal life of Stanley Kubrick
section_title: Settling in the United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Personal life of Stanley Kubrick / Settling in the United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: English: Childwickbury Manor House. Childwickbury manor, formerly Stanley Kubrick's house. Hertfordshire, England.
context_page_description: The personal life of Stanley Kubrick:
context_section_description: Kubrick moved to the United Kingdom to make Lolita because of easier financing via the Eady Levy, since at least 85% of the film was shot in the UK, and freedom from censorship and interference from Hollywood studios.
  There he set up his life so that family and business were combined. Christiane Kubrick told the London Times how rough New York had become, with children having to be escorted to school by police, people being rude, and smashed glass all over the street. Although he thrived on the manic energy of New York, Kubrick soon adapted to the more genteel atmosphere of Britain.
  When he hired Peter Sellers to star in his next film, Dr. Strangelove, Sellers was unable to leave the UK. Kubrick made Britain his permanent home thereafter, although "he never considered himself an expatriate American," wrote biographer Alexander Walker. He also shunned the Hollywood system and its publicity machine, resulting in little media coverage of him as a personality.
  In 1965 the Kubricks moved to Abbots Mead, Barnet Lane, just south of the Elstree/Borehamwood studio complex. This was a turn of the 19th century house, sold to him by Simon Cowell's father, Eric. Kubrick worked almost exclusively from this home for 14 years where, with some exceptions, he researched, invented special effects techniques, designed ultra-low light lenses for specially modified cameras, pre-produced, edited, post-produced, advertised, distributed and carefully managed all aspects of four of his films: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1965 to 1968), A Clockwork Orange (1969 to 1971), Barry Lyndon (1972 to 1975) and most of The Shining (1976 to 1980 - finished the year after he left for Childwickbury Green).
  In 1978, Kubrick moved into Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, UK, a mainly 18th century building about 48 km (30 mi) north of London and a 10-minute drive from his previous home at Abbotts Mead. After finishing The Shining he went on to make Full Metal Jacket and lastly Eyes Wide Shut. He is interred on its grounds together with his eldest daughter Anya Kubrick.
  LoBrutto notes that living in the United Kingdom brought peace to the Kubrick family. After moving to Britain, recalls Christiane, one of the first British radio shows they heard was on gardening. The area's many landscaped parks, gardens and animals was an enormous contrast to New York. "It's very pleasant," said Kubrick, "very peaceful, very civilized here. London is in the best sense the way New York was" in the early 1900s.
  His friend, screenwriter Michael Herr, points out that he did not live in Britain because he disliked America:
  "God knows; America was all he ever talked about. It was always on his mind, and in his blood."
  Kubrick's home in the English countryside, a half-hour drive from London, gave him "energy, inspiration, and confidence," states Walker. It provided him with a "favorable psychological climate in which to function," with more privacy and time for reflection. Kubrick's close friend, Julian Senior, who was vice president for Warner Brothers' London office, compared Kubrick's lifestyle to "a medieval craftsman whose home was his workshop." He did manage to stay up on current affairs, and read The New York Times daily, notes Jan Harlan, adding that Kubrick remained a "New Yorker" at heart his entire life.
caption: Kubrick's Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, England
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