Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG).

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.

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 ft tall by age 12, and stopped growing at 6 ft. 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.

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.

Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime.

He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season.

He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Adams also wrote Dirk Gently'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).

A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.

Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.

It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film.

Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.