Simon Gray | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Simon James Holliday Gray (1936-10-21)21 October 1936 Hayling Island, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 7 August 2008(2008-08-07) (aged 71) London, England |
| Occupation | Playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, novelist academic (1965–1985) |
| Education | Westminster School |
| Alma mater | Dalhousie University (BA) Trinity College, Cambridge (BA) |
| Period | 1963–2008 |
| Genre | Drama, screenplay, memoir, novel |
| Notable works | Butley,Quartermaine's Terms,Otherwise Engaged,The Smoking Diaries |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| simongray | |
 Literature portal | |
Simon James Holliday GrayCBE FRSL (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008)[1] was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as auniversity lecturer inEnglish literature atQueen Mary, University of London, for 20 years.[2][3] While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to five published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries.[4][5][6]
Simon James Holliday Gray was born on 21 October 1936 onHayling Island, inHampshire, England to James Gray and his wifeBarbara (née Holliday). His father, who later became apathologist, worked on the island asGP.[7] In 1939, duringWorld War II, when he was three years old, Simon and his elder brother Nigel were evacuated toMontreal, Quebec, Canada, to live in "a house where his grandfather and [his grandfather's] alcoholic wife were attended upon by a younger aunt"; in 1945, when he was nearly 10, he returned to England, where he was educated atWestminster School, in London.[7] In 1957, he received aB.A. fromDalhousie University,Halifax, Nova Scotia; and, in 1961, another B.A. fromTrinity College, Cambridge.[7][8] In 1965, he was appointed a lecturer in English atQueen Mary College, London.[6][7]
He married his first wife, Beryl Kevern, in 1965; they had two children, a son, Benjamin, and a daughter, Lucy, and were divorced in 1997.[5][7] During their marriage, he had an eight-year affair with anotherQueen Mary lecturer, Victoria Katherine Rothschild (b. 1953), a daughter ofVictor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild;[2][5][9] in 1997, after his divorce, they married, living together in west London, until his death.[10]
In 2004 he was appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama and literature.[7]
Suffering from both lung cancer andprostate cancer and related ailments at the time of his death, he died of anabdominal aortic aneurysm, on 7 August 2008, at the age of 71.[4][6][11]
When he was still in his 20s, he began his writing career as a novelist withColmain, published byFaber and Faber in 1963.[12] His career in drama began when he adapted one of his own short stories,The Caramel Crisis, for television. He subsequently wrote a number of plays for, amongst others,The Wednesday Play andPlay for Today BBC anthology series, frequently in collaboration with the producerKenith Trodd.[13] Gray wrote 40 plays and screenplays for the stage, television, and film and eight volumes of memoirs based on his diaries.[12]
Wise Child, an adaptation of a TV play deemed too shocking for the small screen, was his first stage play. It starredSimon Ward andAlec Guinness and was produced byMichael Codron atWyndham's Theatre in 1967. Subsequently, he wrote original plays for both radio and television and adaptations, including a TV adaptation ofThe Rector’s Daughter, byF. M. Mayor, and stage adaptations ofTartuffe andThe Idiot. His original television screenplays includeRunning Late,After Pilkington,Unnatural Pursuits, andA Month in the Country. His 1971 playButley, produced by Codron, began a long creative partnership withHarold Pinter as director of both the play and the film versions and continued the partnership with the actorAlan Bates begun with Gray's 1967 television playDeath of a Teddy Bear. In all Bates starred in 11 of Gray's works, while Pinter directed 10 separate productions of Gray's works for stage, film, and television, beginning withButley. The last one was a stage production ofThe Old Masters, starringPeter Bowles andEdward Fox.[12][14][15]
As withButley (1971) andOtherwise Engaged (1975), whose London productions and films both starred Bates, andQuartermaine's Terms (1981), starring Fox, Gray "often returned to the subject of the lives and trials of educated intellectuals."[12]
He wrote many other successful stage plays, includingThe Common Pursuit,The Late Middle Classes,Hidden Laughter,Japes,Close of Play,The Rear Column, andLittle Nell, several of which he directed himself.
In 1984, at the suggestion ofRobert McCrum,Faber editor-in-chief at that time, he kept a diary of the London premiere ofThe Common Pursuit, directed by Pinter at theLyric Hammersmith, resulting in the first of his 8 volumes of theatre-related and personal memoirs,An Unnatural Pursuit (Faber 1985), and culminating in the critically acclaimed trilogy entitledThe Smoking Diaries (Granta, 2004–2008).[16]
Gray's play aboutGeorge Blake,Cell Mates (1995), starringRik Mayall,Stephen Fry andSimon Ward, attracted media attention whenStephen Fry suffered a nervous breakdown and abruptly "fled toBruges" after the third West End performance, thus leaving the show without its lead actor.[3] Gray subsequently wrote his theatrical memoirFat Chance, providing an account of the episode.[17]
In August 2008, shortly before his death, he attracted further press attention with his criticism of theRoyal National Theatre's "cowardice" in dealing with the subject of radicalIslam.[18]
Gray's final volume of diaries,Coda, "so named because it rounds off the trilogy of 'Smoking Diaries' (The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer and The Last Cigarette) ... a meditation on death, or rather dying, an account of living on borrowed time," was published posthumously by Faber and Faber andGranta in November 2008.[19][20] From 8 to 12 December 2008, in five 15-minute episodes, actorToby Stephens read from this "candid and darkly comic account of coming to terms with terminal cancer" forBBC Radio 4'sBook of the Week.[21]
Simon Gray: A Celebration, directed byHarry Burton, who directed Gray's last stage production in Spring 2008 (Quartermaine's Terms atTheatre Royal, Windsor),[22] was held at theComedy Theatre, in London, on 15 March 2009.[23]
A production entitledThe Last Cigarette, based on Gray's andHugh Whitemore's adaptation of the three volumes of his memoirs calledThe Smoking Diaries and directed byRichard Eyre, opened at theMinerva Theatre, Chichester, England, in April 2009.[24][25] The production, withFelicity Kendal,Nicholas Le Prevost, andJasper Britton, then transferred to theTrafalgar Studios, in London'sWest End,[26][27]
An official web site was launched in October 2009.[28]
The Late Middle Classes finally received its London premiere on 27 May 2010 at theDonmar Warehouse in London, directed by David Leveaux and starringHelen McCrory,Eleanor Bron,Peter Sullivan andRobert Glenister. The original production of the play, directed by Harold Pinter, was prevented from reaching its intendedWest End theatre by a musical about a boy band.[29] Gray's experience of this production is the subject of his diaryEnter a Fox.
In May–June 2014In the Vale of Health, consisting of three unseen plays and one revival—Japes,Michael,Japes Too andMissing Dates—was performed at theHampstead Theatre, London, directed by Tamara Harvey and starringGethin Anthony, Jamie Ballard, Imogen Doel, Tom Mothersdale andLaura Rees. The plays tell the story, from different perspectives, of two brothers who fall in love with the same woman.[1]
The Definitive Simon Gray. In 4 vols. London:Faber, 1992–1994.
Key Plays. Introd.Harold Pinter. London:Faber, 2002.ISBN 0-571-21634-X. (Includes:Butley;Otherwise Engaged;Close of Play;Quartermaine's Terms; andThe Late Middle Classes.)
Simon Gray is a prolific playwright who gets up at lunchtime; an ex alcoholic who refuses to stop smoking; a pessimist who has just published his very funny diaries. He talks about adultery, self-hate and drinking four bottles of champagne a day.
The playwright and diarist Simon Gray died on Wednesday. Here his close friend, the writer Tony Gould, remembers a man to whom literature was the stuff of life, while below other literary figures pay tribute to his memory.
Academic and lecturer; daughter of Sir Nathaniel Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild.
There is a burning inevitability, of course, that a habit begun aged 7, pursued tirelessly, heroically even, through past health horrors includinganeurysms andprostate cancer, peaking at 65 fags a day, would get him in the end.
We hope to locate a complete, undecayed print of A Month in the Country and to see the restored film released on high quality DVD (for both region 1 and region 2) in honor of its 20th anniversary.
Reviewed by Phil Baker, Nick Rennison, Emma Unsworth, Elizabeth Scott-Baumann and Ian Critchley.
Barber, Lynn."'I wrote a lot of my plays drunk. It liberated me'."Guardian.Guardian Media Group, 4 April 2004.Web. 30 March 2009.
Billington, Michael."Memo to the BBC: Bring Back Simon Gray's TV Plays".Guardian, Theatre Blog.Guardian Media Group, 16 March 2009.Web. 29 March 2009.
"Gray, Simon."Who's Who in the Theatre. 15 and 16th eds. London: Pitman, 1972 & 1977; 17th ed. London: Gale, 1981.
"Simon Gray".Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2009.Web. 7 April 2009.
Taylor, Alan."Benefit of the Dowt".Sunday Herald.SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd., 25 April 2004.ProQuest.FindArticles.com (BNET).Web. 6 April 2009. (Book rev. ofThe Smoking Diaries.)
Fort, Viola."Simon Gray".Untitled Books. UntitledBooks.com, 6 June 2008.Web. 29 March 2009. ("His reflective, moving and often very funny memoirs have brought Simon Gray a whole new readership outside theatre circles. The third volume, The Last Cigarette, is a triumph. He tells Viola Fort how memory is an act of imagination.")
Hattenstone, Simon."Interview: Simon Gray: The Butt-ends of His Days".Guardian.Guardian Media Group, 28 July 2007.Web. 30 March 2009. ("His memoirs made him a poster boy for smoking, but at 70 playwright Simon Gray has finished the final volume and is finally cutting down, he tellsSimon Hattenstone.")
Alberge, Dalya."Simon Gray, Self-Deprecating Writer and Smoker Dies".Times, Obituary.News Corporation, 8 August 2008.Web. 29 March 2009.
Billington, Michael."Remembering Simon Gray".The Guardian.Guardian Media Group, 8 August 2008.Web. 29 March 2009.
Gardner, Lyn."Simon Gray: Playwright, Diarist and Novelist Who Bridged the Gulf between Intellectual and Popular Drama".The Guardian.Guardian Media Group, 7 August 2008.Web. 29 March 2009.
Gould, Tony."Appreciation: Simon Gray, 1936–2008: Smoker, Gambler, Teacher and Writer with an Enviable Gift for Friendship".Observer.Guardian Media Group, 10 August 2008.Web. 30 March 2009.
"Simon Gray: Rakish and Versatile Playwright".Times Online, Obituaries.News Corporation, 8 August 2008.Web. 29 March 2009.
Spencer, Charles."Simon Gray: 'I will never forget his kindness' ".Daily Telegraph.Telegraph Media Group, 15 August 2009.Web. 30 March 2009.
Strachan, Alan."Simon Gray, Playwright, Novelist and Author of a Series of Hilarious Irascible Memoirs".Independent.Independent News & Media, 8 August 2008.Web. 29 March 2009.
Weber, Bruce."Simon Gray, Playwright, Dies at 71: Aimed Wit at Intellectuals, and Himself".New York Times, Obituary.New York Times Company, 8 August 2008.Web. 30 March 2009.
Young, Josa."The Late Great Simon Gray"[permanent dead link].The Huffington Post, 25 March 2009.Web. 29 March 2009.
Theatre Record and its annual Indexes.
