Ken Annakin (born August 10, 1914) is a British film director. His career in films followed his work experience in documentaries. He made his directing debut in 1947 at the Rank studios. Annakin became known for a series of Walt Disney adventures including The Story of Robin Hood (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and The Swiss Family Robinson (1960). He was later associated with another American producer Darryl F. Zanuck when he was hired to direct the British segments in The Longest Day. As head of the 20th Century-Fox Studio, Zanuck endorsed Annakin's most ambitious project Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). He also directed the big-scale war movie Battle of the Bulge (also 1965) for the Warner Brothers studio. However, some of Annakin's better received films are smaller-scale comedies and dramas, including his episodes in Quartet (1948) and Trio (1950), based on Somerset Maugham's stories, Hotel Sahara (1951), Across the Bridge (1957), Crooks Anonymous (1962), The Fast Lady (1963) and The Informers (1963). In 2002, Annakin was honoured by Queen Elizabeth with an appointment to the OBE.
