Canadian-born filmmaker Alvin Rakoff directed Olivier, Connery and other stars in England

It was 1957 and Alvin Rakoff, a rising young television director at the BBC, was in charge of the production for Requiem for a Heavyweight, a drama by Rod Serling about a washed-up professional boxer.The play had been a big success on American TV but because shows in the early days of TV were broadcast live, the BBC had decided to do its own version of the play. The Toronto-born Mr. Rakoff, who had arrived just five years earlier in the UK, was already making a name for himself as a talented, versatile director.