Clive Exton
Encyclopedia
Clive Exton was a British
television
and film
screenwriter
, sometime playwright
, and former actor
. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie
’s Poirot
, P. G. Wodehouse
's Jeeves and Wooster
, and Rosemary & Thyme
.
, London
, England
, the son of a civil service clerk. He spent two years in the British Army
, stationed in Germany
. Equity, the actors' union, required his change of professional name, as there was already an actor registered under the name Clive Brook. After training at the Central School of Speech and Drama
and deciding to act, he borrowed the name Exton from the character "Sir Piers Exton" in the William Shakespeare
play
Richard II
.
His first television play, No Fixed Abode, was transmitted by Granada Television
in 1959. He then contributed to Sydney Newman
’s Armchair Theatre
series which included the episodes: "Where I Live", "Hold My Hand, Soldier", "I’ll Have You to Remember," and "The Trial of Doctor Fancy," among others; the best of them being directed by Ted Kotcheff
.
He later wrote "The Close Prisoner" (also with Kotcheff) for ATV
's Studio 64 – a season of plays designed to emphasize the role of the writer in television – and Land of My Dreams, The Bone Yard, The Big Eat, Are You Ready For the Music? and The Rainbirds for the BBC
. He also wrote The Boundary (1975), with Tom Stoppard
, for the BBC’s experimental series The Eleventh Hour. Most of this early work is now lost, having been made at a time when programmes recorded on tape were routinely wiped
and telerecordings discarded.
Exton then moved away from the single play and initiated series such as Killers, Conceptions of Murder and The Crezz, a depiction of Notting Hill
life in the seventies. He also contributed, under the nom de plume M. K. Jeeves, two episodes to the first season of Terry Nation
's Survivors
for the BBC
.
Exton said that the only feature film he ever wrote that pleased him was 10 Rillington Place, with Sir Richard Attenborough
(1971). Other films include Night Must Fall
, Entertaining Mr Sloane
(from the Joe Orton
play) and Isadora
(with Melvyn Bragg
and starring Vanessa Redgrave
). He worked without credit on many films, but it is now known that he made major contributions to the scripts of Georgy Girl
and The Bounty
.
, and the action-adventure Red Sonja
(starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
, 1985), and, uncredited, contributed to The Bounty (with Sir Anthony Hopkins
, 1984) before returning to Britain, where a new era awaited him.
Returning to England in 1986, Exton found that the television business had radically changed through the rise of the independent producer, such as Brian Eastman
, for whom he wrote most of the episodes (20) of Agatha Christie
’s Poirot
, with David Suchet
(1989–2000), all of the episodes (23) of Jeeves and Wooster
, with Hugh Laurie
and Stephen Fry
(1990–1993), and ten episodes of Rosemary & Thyme
(2003–2006).
He also dramatised for television works by Jean Cocteau
, Daphne du Maurier
, Graham Greene
, Somerset Maugham, Ruth Rendell
, Georges Simenon
and H. G. Wells
.
He was married twice, first to Patricia Fletcher Ferguson (1951–1957), with whom he had two daughters, and then from 1957 until his death to Margaret "Mara" Reid, with whom he had three children, two daughters (Antigone Margaret and Cornelia Plaxy) and a son (Saul). He died in London of brain cancer on 16 August 2007.
Exton wrote only sporadically for the theatre:
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, sometime playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and former actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
’s Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
, P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
's Jeeves and Wooster
Jeeves and Wooster
-External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
, and Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme is a British television mystery series that starred Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. The show began on ITV in 2003, and the third series ended in August 2007...
.
Early career
He was born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in IslingtonIslington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of a civil service clerk. He spent two years in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, stationed in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Equity, the actors' union, required his change of professional name, as there was already an actor registered under the name Clive Brook. After training at the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
and deciding to act, he borrowed the name Exton from the character "Sir Piers Exton" in the William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
.
His first television play, No Fixed Abode, was transmitted by Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
in 1959. He then contributed to Sydney Newman
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman, OC was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s...
’s Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television after 1968....
series which included the episodes: "Where I Live", "Hold My Hand, Soldier", "I’ll Have You to Remember," and "The Trial of Doctor Fancy," among others; the best of them being directed by Ted Kotcheff
Ted Kotcheff
Ted Kotcheff , sometimes credited as William Kotcheff or William T. Kotcheff, is a Canadian film and television director, who is well known for his work on several high-profile British television productions and as a director of films such as First Blood.-Early life:Kotcheff was born William...
.
He later wrote "The Close Prisoner" (also with Kotcheff) for ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
's Studio 64 – a season of plays designed to emphasize the role of the writer in television – and Land of My Dreams, The Bone Yard, The Big Eat, Are You Ready For the Music? and The Rainbirds for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. He also wrote The Boundary (1975), with Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
, for the BBC’s experimental series The Eleventh Hour. Most of this early work is now lost, having been made at a time when programmes recorded on tape were routinely wiped
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
and telerecordings discarded.
Exton then moved away from the single play and initiated series such as Killers, Conceptions of Murder and The Crezz, a depiction of Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
life in the seventies. He also contributed, under the nom de plume M. K. Jeeves, two episodes to the first season of Terry Nation
Terry Nation
Terry Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist.He is probably best known for creating the villainous Daleks in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who...
's Survivors
Survivors
Survivors is a British post-apocalyptic fiction television series devised by Terry Nation and produced by Terence Dudley at the BBC from 1975 to 1977...
for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
Exton said that the only feature film he ever wrote that pleased him was 10 Rillington Place, with Sir Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
(1971). Other films include Night Must Fall
Night Must Fall (1964 film)
Night Must Fall is a remake of the 1937 film of the same name, which was in turn based on the 1935 play by Emlyn Williams. It was directed by Karel Reisz from a script by Clive Exton and starred Albert Finney, Mona Washbourne, and Susan Hampshire, but was not as successful as the original film...
, Entertaining Mr Sloane
Entertaining Mr Sloane
Entertaining Mr Sloane is a play by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964.-Plot summary:Act 1...
(from the Joe Orton
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
play) and Isadora
Isadora
Isadora is a 1968 biographical film which tells the story of celebrated American dancer Isadora Duncan. It stars Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox and Jason Robards....
(with Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...
and starring Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
). He worked without credit on many films, but it is now known that he made major contributions to the scripts of Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....
and The Bounty
The Bounty
The Bounty is a 1984 British historical film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and produced by Bernard Williams with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer. It is the fifth film version of the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. The screenplay was by Robert Bolt...
.
Later career
A 10-year stay in Hollywood bore little fruit. He co-wrote The Awakening (1980), an adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven StarsThe Jewel of Seven Stars
The Jewel of Seven Stars is a horror novel by Bram Stoker, first published in 1903. The story is about an archaeologist's plot to revive Queen Tera, an ancient Egyptian mummy.-Second edition:...
, and the action-adventure Red Sonja
Red Sonja
Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a fictional character, a high fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith, and loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture"...
(starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
, 1985), and, uncredited, contributed to The Bounty (with Sir Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
, 1984) before returning to Britain, where a new era awaited him.
Returning to England in 1986, Exton found that the television business had radically changed through the rise of the independent producer, such as Brian Eastman
Brian Eastman
Brian Eastman is a producer of feature films , television drama , and stage productions...
, for whom he wrote most of the episodes (20) of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
’s Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
, with David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
(1989–2000), all of the episodes (23) of Jeeves and Wooster
Jeeves and Wooster
-External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
, with Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
and Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
(1990–1993), and ten episodes of Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme is a British television mystery series that starred Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. The show began on ITV in 2003, and the third series ended in August 2007...
(2003–2006).
He also dramatised for television works by Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Daphne du Maurier
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
, Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, Somerset Maugham, Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries....
, Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
and H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
.
He was married twice, first to Patricia Fletcher Ferguson (1951–1957), with whom he had two daughters, and then from 1957 until his death to Margaret "Mara" Reid, with whom he had three children, two daughters (Antigone Margaret and Cornelia Plaxy) and a son (Saul). He died in London of brain cancer on 16 August 2007.
Exton wrote only sporadically for the theatre:
- Have You Any Dirty Washing, Mother Dear? (1970)
- Twixt (1990), Dressing Down (1995)
- Barking in Essex (2005)