Douglas Adams: Difference between revisions

'''Douglas Noel Adams''' (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, screenwriter, essayist, humorist, satirist and dramatist. Adams was author of ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', which originated in 1978 as [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)|a BBC radio comedy]], before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15&nbsp;million copies in his lifetime and generated [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)|a television series]], several stage plays, comics, [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|a video game]], and in 2005 [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)|a feature film]]. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in [[Radio Academy|The Radio Academy]]'s Hall of Fame.<ref name="radioacad">{{cite web|title=The Radio Academy Hall of Fame |url=http://www.radioacademy.org/hall-of-fame |work=The Radio Academy |access-date=8 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111205051058/http://www.radioacademy.org/hall-of-fame/ |archive-date= 5 December 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

 

While working on the radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as ''[[The Pirate Planet]]'') Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that ''[[So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish]]'' was completed.<ref>Felch 2004</ref> He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."<ref name=Simpson_236>{{Harvnb|Simpson|2003|p=236}}</ref> Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992.

 

 

In 1980, Adams began attempts to turn the first ''Hitchhiker's'' novel into a film, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year, the radio series became the basis for a BBC television mini-series<ref>{{citation|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081874/|title=''The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy''|publisher=Internet Movie Database}}</ref> broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the film project started with [[Disney]], which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay got a posthumous re-write by [[Karey Kirkpatrick]], and [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)|the resulting film]] was released in 2005.