Shipman was born in
Norwich, Norfolk, He worked as a publishing sales representative from 1955 to 1965, mostly in Europe, then returned to work for the UK publisher
Thames & Hudson. In 1968, Shipman began work on a first book,
The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years, which was published two years later and sold well. He also worked as a lecturer, journalist and film consultant, and from 1986 until his death wrote obituaries for
The Independent newspaper. He was survived by his partner since 1964, the art director Felix Brenner. Richard Cohen, writing Shipman's obituary for
The Independent, stated: For over a quarter of a century David Shipman was the most influential writer on film in the world. He was never [a] film critic for a national newspaper, and was generally not seen by the cinema establishment as a heavyweight; but in the 10 books he wrote, most notably the three volumes that made up
The Great Movie Stars and the two-volume
The Story of Cinema, he exerted an influence no other writer on film has matched. More widely read than
Pauline Kael, more authoritative and more knowledgeable than
Leslie Halliwell, he always seemed in touch with the audiences for whom he wrote, and they appreciated his strongly held if iconoclastic views and the fact he was always his own man. ==Select writings==