Information AboutClive Exton |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT CLIVE EXTON | |
| 1930 births | |
| 2007 deaths | |
| english dramatists and playwrights | |
| english screenwriters | |
| english television writers | |
| people from london | |
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Born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in the Islington suburb of London , England , the son of a civil service clerk, he borrowed the name Exton from the William Shakespeare Play '' Richard II ,'' and the character "Sir Piers Exton." He spent two years in the British Army , stationed in Germany . His first television play, ''No Fixed Abode,'' was transmitted by . He later wrote "The Close Prisoner" (also with Kotcheff) for ATV 's '' Studio 64 '' - a season of plays designed to emphasize the role of the writer in television - and ''Land of My Dreams'', ''The Bone Yard'', ''The Big Eat'', ''Are You Ready For the Music ?'' and ''The Rainbirds'' for the BBC . He also wrote '' The Boundary '' (1975), with Tom Stoppard , for the BBC’s experimental series ''The Eleventh Hour''. Most of this early work is now lost, having been made at a time when programmes recorded on tape were routinely Wiped and Telerecording s discarded. Exton then moved away from the single play and initiated series such as ''Killers'', ''Conceptions of Murder'' and ''The Crezz'', a depiction of Notting Hill life in the seventies. He also contributed, under the Nom De Plume M. K. Jeeves, two episodes to the first season of Terry Nation 's '' Survivors '' for the BBC . Exton said that the only feature film he ever wrote that pleased him was '' 10 Rillington Place , '' with Sir Richard Attenborough (1971). Other films include '' Night Must Fall '', '' Entertaining Mr Sloane '' (from the Joe Orton play) and '' Isadora '' (with Melvyn Bragg and starring Vanessa Redgrave ). He worked without credit on many films, but it is now known that he made major contributions to the scripts of '' Georgy Girl '' and '' The Bounty ''. A 10-year stay in Hollywood bore little fruit. He co-wrote the action-adventure Red Sonja (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger , 1985), and, uncredited, contributed to ''The Bounty'' (with Sir Anthony Hopkins , 1984) before returning to Britain, where a new era awaited him. Returning to England in 1986, Exton found that the television business had radically changed through the rise of the independent producer, such as Brian Eastman , for whom he wrote most of the episodes (20) of Agatha Christie ’s '' Poirot ,'' with David Suchet (1989-2000), all of the episodes (23) of '' Jeeves And Wooster ,'' with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (1990-1993), and ten episodes of '' Rosemary & Thyme '' (2003-2006). He also dramatised for television works by Jean Cocteau , Daphne Du Maurier , Graham Greene , Somerset Maugham , Ruth Rendell , Georges Simenon and H. G. Wells . He was married twice, first to Patricia Fletcher Ferguson (1951-1957), with whom he had two daughters, and then to Margaret "Mara" Reid (1957-2007), with whom he had three children, two daughters and a son. He passed away, in London, at age 77 of Brain Cancer . Exton wrote only sporadically for the theatre:
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