Gavin Millar was born in Clydebank, Scotland, to a working class family. The family moved to England when he was nine years old. After school and national service in the Royal Air Force, he studied English at Oxford University. His notable early work as a director was for the BBC in the 1960s. He also went on to direct for commercial television, including Dennis Potter's Cream in My Coffee (1980) for London Weekend Television and John le Carré's A Murder of Quality (1991) for Thames Television. Although mainly known for television, he has directed films such as Dreamchild (1985) (again by Potter) and Iain Banks' raunchy Complicity (2000).