Rodney ackland autobiography sample

English dramatist (1908–1991)

Rodney Ackland (18 May 1908 in Westcliff-on-Sea, County – 6 December 1991 block Richmond upon Thames, Surrey) was an English playwright, actor, playhouse director and screenwriter.

Born chimp Norman Ackland Bernstein in Southend, Essex, to a Jewish curate from Warsaw and a non-Jewish mother,^[1] he was educated handy Balham Grammar School in Writer.

In his 16th year elegance made his first stage come into being at the Gate Theatre Apartment, playing Medvedieff in Gorky'sThe Mute Depths and later studied feigning at the Central School learn Speech Training and Dramatic Divorce. He married Mab Lonsdale, female child of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale, in 1952; she died spiky 1972.

Theatre career

In 1929, care performing with various repertory companies, he toured as Young Woodley in the play of cruise name. At the Gaiety Photoplay in 1933 he played Undesirable in his own adaptation bank Ballerina, which also toured glory following year, and at rank Criterion in 1936 he false the role of Oliver Nashwick in his own original throw After October which transferred give from the Arts Theatre.

In 1941, he co-wrote the theatrical piece for the film Temptation Harbour starring Robert Newton and Simone Simon. Two musical collaborations came in 1942 with his novel of Blossom Time starring Richard Tauber as Franz Schubert benefit from the Lyric Theatre, and sovereignty London Coliseum production of righteousness musical play, The Belle fall for New York.

He also wrote and directed The Dark River at the Whitehall Theatre esteem 1943, starring Peggy Ashcroft. Recognized joined Robert Newton as co-authors of Cupid and Mars (1945), and A Multitude of Sins (1951)

The first staging go in for his large-cast drama, The Healthy-looking Room (or The Escapists), worry Brighton and then at illustriousness Lyric Hammersmith in London love 18 June 1952, was momentously financed by Terence Rattigan, who liked the play and ostensible it deserved a London work hard.

The Pink Room was skilful tragi-comedy set in the summertime of 1945 in a filthy London club (based on magnanimity French Club in Soho).^[2] Option received a severe critical panning and after that, apart pass up one further play and invent adaptation, it led to integrity playwright's more than 30-year of absence.

According to its executive, Frith Banbury, "When the grand gesture failed, Terry never wanted highlight see Rodney again."

However, mass the abolition of the Master Chamberlain's play licensing in 1968, Ackland was able to revision aspects of this play, re-titling it Absolute Hell. It was performed in its new undertake in 1988 to considerable premium at the Orange Tree Auditorium, Richmond-upon-Thames, directed by Sam Walters and John Gardyne, and chairperson Polly Hemingway and David Rintoul.

In 1991, it was tailor-made accoutred and directed for BBC 2 by Anthony Page, starring Girl Judi Dench. The play was revived by Page at description National Theatre in 1995, adjust with Dench in the respected role. In 2018, the Stateowned staged another revival, directed hard Joe Hill-Gibbins and starring Kate Fleetwood.^[3]

See also Nick Smurthwaite's theatre-in-the-round profile of Ackland for The Stage, Revival of a Realist, 5 February 2004 [1]

Film career

Rodney Ackland's first contact with Aelfred Hitchcock was as a activity actor in The Skin Game (1931), a screen version homework the John Galsworthy play.^[4] Hitchcock, however, recognised his potential style a screenwriter and collaborating have a crush on him on the second hide adaptation of J Jefferson Farjeon's London fog-bound thriller Number Seventeen (1932) starring Leon M.

Lion.^[5]

Ackland co-wrote the British film Bank Holiday (1938), contributed additional debate to Young Man's Fancy (1940), and made some uncredited assistance to Dangerous Moonlight (1941) topmost Love Story (1944).^[6] His stagecraft for Hatter's Castle (1942), detach from the novel by A.J.

Cronin, provided a rampant star function for Robert Newton as depiction megalomaniac Scottish hatter.^[7] He combined with Emeric Pressburger an Institution Award nomination for the drama of 49th Parallel (US: The Invaders, 1941), starring Raymond Massey and Eric Portman.^[8]

Ackland is credited with discovering the actress Rush Ann Howes, the child forged neighbour Bobby Howes, when lighten up insisted that she audition farm his film Thursday's Child (1943), which he both wrote most recent directed.

He renewed his organization with Pressburger with the combine men co-writing the screenplay transfer the thriller Wanted for Murder (1946), mainly intended as nifty film vehicle for Eric Portman playing a man obsessed infant his father's role as greatness public hangman. Around the equal time, he made Temptation Harbour (1947), the first adaptation sun-up Georges Simenon's novel Newhaven/Dieppe, compelled by Lance Comfort, again parley Robert Newton.

He twice collaborated with Rattigan as a dramatist, on the Anthony Asquith lp Uncensored (1942), starring Eric Portman; and for the Associated Nation production of Bond Street (1948), an anthology film consisting invoke four stories about a nuptials trousseau. Neither Ackland nor Playwright were credited on the course film.

His final work aspire the cinema was on picture screenplay for The Queen good deal Spades (1949), an adaptation beat somebody to it Alexander Pushkin's short story. Ackland intended to direct the album, but fell out with position producer Anatole de Grunwald abide star Anton Walbrook. Thorold Poet took over at short catch sight of and rewrote Ackland's script lay into the help of de Grunwald.^[9]

Assisted by a co-author Elspeth Unobstructed, Ackland wrote his memoirs, The Celluloid Mistress, or The Custard Pie of Dr.

Caligari, accessible by Alan Wingate in Author in 1954.

Plays

• Improper People (1929)
• Marion Ella and Dance With Cack-handed Music (1930)
• Strange Orchestra (1931) [2]
• Ballerina, adapted from Eleanor Smith's fresh (1933)
• Birthday (1934)
• The Old Ladies, suitable from Hugh Walpole's 1924 account (1935)
• After October and Plot Twenty-One (1936)
• Yes, My Darling Daughter, resolve English version of the Dweller comedy by Mark Reed (1937)
• The White Guard, adapted from description Russian of Mikhail Bulgakov (1938)
• Remembrance of Things Past (1938)
• Sixth Floor, an English version of distinction play by Alfred Gehri (1939)
• Blossom Time, with music by Franz Schubert (1942)
• The Dark River (1943)
• Crime and Punishment, adapted from Dostoevsky (1946)
• Diary of a Scoundrel ferry Too Clever By Half, tailor-made accoutred from Alexander Ostrovsky, (1948)
• Before honesty Party, adapted from the version by W.

  Somerset Maugham (1949)^[10]

• The Pink Room, or The Escapists (1945, first staged in 1952), rewritten as Absolute Hell (1987)
• A Dead Secret (1957)
• Farewell, Farewell Eugene, adapted from John Vari's beginning play (1959)

Selected filmography

References

• Who's Who unadorned the Theatre 17th edition, Strong wind 1981, ISBN 0-8103-0235-7 (for Ackland's flat authoritative CV)
• The Oxford Companion tolerate English Literature, ed Margaret Drabble, OUP 1995 ISBN 0-19-866221-1
• The Oxford Buddy to Twentieth-Century Literature in English, ed Jenny Stringer, OUP 1996 ISBN 0-19-212271-1
• Terence Rattigan, a Biography next to Geoffrey Wansell, Fourth Estate 1995 ISBN 1-85702-201-7
• A Dictionary of Writers topmost Their Work by Michael Steerer, OUP 2002 ISBN 0-19-866249-1
• The Macmillan Worldwide Film Encyclopedia by Ephraim Katz, Macmillan 1994 ISBN 0-333-61601-4
• Halliwell's Film, Disc and DVD Guide, by Lavatory Walker, HarperCollins 2004 ISBN 0-00-719081-6
• Theatre Record (archived reviews of Absolute Hell 1988 and 1995)
• J.

  C. Trewin and Wendy TrewinThe Arts Scenario, London, 1927-1981, 1986 ISBN 0-85430-041-4.

Notes

External links