Douglas Adams
English Author and Humorist
| Date of Birth | : | 11 Mar, 1952 |
| Date of Death | : | 21 May, 2001 |
| Place of Birth | : | Cambridge, United Kingdom |
| Profession | : | Comedian, Novelist, Screenwriter, Musician, Playwright, Humorist |
| Nationality | : | English |
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, comedian and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy became a five-book "trilogy" that sold more than 15 million copies during his lifetime. It was later made into a television series, several plays, comics, a video game and a 2005 feature film. Adams' contribution to UK radio is commemorated in the Radio Academy Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gfully's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See. (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979) and served as script editor for its seventeenth series. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works was published in 2002, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, as The Salmon of Doubt.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist," an advocate of environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.
Early life
Adams was born in Cambridge on 11 March 1952 to Christopher Douglas Adams (1927–1985), a management consultant and computer salesman, former probation officer and lecturer on probationary group therapy techniques, and nurse Janet (1927–2016), née Donovan. The family moved a few months after his birth to the East End of London, where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan and their mother moved then to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex, run by his maternal grandparents. Each remarried, giving Adams four half-siblings. A great-grandfather was the playwright Benjamin Franklin Wedekind.
Education
Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At the age of nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School. He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. Adams was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall by age 12, and stopped growing at 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). His form master, Frank Halford, said that Adams's height had made him stand out and that he had been self-conscious about it. His ability to write stories made him well known in the school. Adams became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing – something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block.
Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in The Brentwoodian in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine Broadsheet, edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, who later became a character in The Hitchhiker's Guide. He also designed the cover of one issue of the Broadsheet, and had a letter and short story published in The Eagle, the boys' comic, in 1965. A poem entitled "A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining" written by Adams in January 1970 at the age of 17, was discovered in a cupboard at the school in early 2014.
On the strength of an essay on religious poetry that discussed the Beatles and William Blake, he was awarded an Exhibition in English at St John's College, Cambridge (where his father had also been a student), going up in 1971. He wanted to join the Footlights, an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for comic talent. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith; they formed a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams". He became a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work – he recalled having completed three essays in three years – he graduated in 1974 with a 2:2 in English literature.
Career
Writing
After leaving university Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the Footlights Revue appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of the Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of Monty Python for a sketch called "Patient Abuse". The pair also co-wrote the "Marilyn Monroe" sketch which appeared on the soundtrack album of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Adams is one of only two people other than the original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes). Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never gets started. At the beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a pepper-pot outfit and loads a missile onto a cart driven by Terry Jones, who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974.Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees.
At this point Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to the then-current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil.
During this time Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976 his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. By Christmas, work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard and low confidence became a feature of Adams's life; "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".
Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for The Burkiss Way in 1977 and The News Huddlines. He also wrote, again with Chapman, the 20 February 1977 episode of Doctor on the Go, a sequel to the Doctor in the House television comedy series. After the first radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on Week Ending and a pantomime called Black Cinderella Two Goes East. He left after six months to become the script editor for Doctor Who.
In 1979, Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles: "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes eight and twelve). John Lloyd was also co-author of two episodes from the original Hitchhiker radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff.
Personal life
Adams moved to Upper Street, Islington, in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace, a few minutes' walk away, in the late 1980s.
In the early 1980s, Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson, who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book Life, the Universe and Everything to Emerson. In 1981, Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard, a contemporary of Adams at Brentwood School, and later editor of The Times. Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983, while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of Hitchhiker's. When the deal fell through, they moved back to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and a broken engagement, they married on 25 November 1991.
Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999, the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Belson died on 7 September 2011 of cancer, aged 59.
Death and legacy
Adams died of a heart attack due to undiagnosed coronary artery disease on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California. His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara. His ashes were placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002. A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square, London. This became the first church service broadcast live on the web by the BBC.
Two days before Adams died, the Minor Planet Center announced the naming of asteroid 18610 Arthurdent. In 2005, the asteroid 25924 Douglasadams was named in his memory.
In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry (in the UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the US edition), and Terry Jones (in the US paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt, which was originally intended to become a new Dirk Gently novel, but might have later become the sixth Hitchhiker novel.
Other events after Adams's death included a webcast production of Shada, allowing the complete story to be told, radio dramatisations of the final three books in the Hitchhiker's series, and the completion of the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The film, released in 2005, posthumously credits Adams as a producer, and several design elements – including a head-shaped planet seen near the end of the film – incorporated Adams's features.
A 12-part radio series based on the Dirk Gently novels was announced in 2007. BBC Radio 4 also commissioned a third Dirk Gently radio series based on the incomplete chapters of The Salmon of Doubt, and written by Kim Fuller; but this was dropped in favour of a BBC TV series based on the two completed novels. A sixth Hitchhiker novel, And Another Thing..., by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer, was released on 12 October 2009 (the 30th anniversary of the first book), published with the support of Adams's estate. A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime adaptation and an audio book soon followed.
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