He wrote movies, and he loved movies

British-born Gavin Lambert was an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, a movie director and a respected biographer of such Hollywood legends as Natalie Wood and Norma Shearer.

He was also a devoted cinephile who loved to attend movies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Lambert, who died last July at age 80, is being honored by LACMA with “A Tribute to Gavin Lambert” series, which begins Friday at the Leo S. Bing Theater with two films he co-adapted from novels: 1961’s “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,” based on Tennessee Williams’ novel, and 1977’s “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” adapted from Joanne Greenberg’s novel. Lambert and Lewis John Carlino received Oscar nominations for the latter screenplay.

Lambert not only was an audience member at LACMA, he also often appeared as a guest. When Lambert published his book on filmmaker Lindsay Anderson, “Mainly About Lindsay Anderson,” Ian Birnie, the director of the film department, scheduled a retrospective on the influential British director. And in honor of Lambert’s biography on Wood, “Natalie Wood: A Life,” Birnie presented a weekend devoted to the late actress’ movies.

The tribute to Lambert, said Birnie, “is an interesting series. Every single film touches on everything he was connected with.”

The series, which continues through Feb. 11, features virtually all the films for which he wrote screenplays, including 1965’s “Inside Daisy Clover” (which he adapted from his novel), 1957’s “Bitter Victory” and 1960’s “Sons and Lovers,” for which he received his first Oscar nomination, as well as a film starring or directed by one of the subjects he wrote about. “So we have ‘Salome’ with [Alla] Nazimova, ‘Inside Daily Clover’ with Wood and ‘Private Lives’ with Norma Shearer,” said Birnie.

On Saturday, Birnie is also screening the only film Lambert ever directed, 1954’s “Another Sky,” a drama about sexual obsessions and repression shot in Morocco.

Rounding out the series is “Bigger Than Life,” a rarely seen 1956 Nicholas Ray drama that brought Lambert to Hollywood as the director’s personal assistant, Anderson’s 1968 classic “If ...” and his favorite George Cukor film, 1938’s “Holiday” with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.