DOUGLAS ADAMS
Douglas Adams was a wonderful humourous writer who wrote the series of books which most geeks worship, The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Douglas's Early Life
Douglas Noel Adams was born in Cambridge on 11 March, 1952. He was considered a strange child and a little slow; walking into lamp-posts and taking a while to learn to talk. He was 11 when he first got anything into print - a short story in the Eagle about a man who lost his memory. From 1959 until 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School in Essex, during which time he was still more interested in the field of science than in the arts. The moment he thought seriously about writing for the first time was at the age of ten, when he got ten out of ten for a composition in Frank Halford's class - reportedly the first and last time Mr Halford gave full marks. For his essay on the revival of religious poetry he won himself an exhibition to study English at St John's College, Cambridge. Douglas was eager to go to Cambridge as he wanted to join Footlights, a comedy revue group there. But in his first term he found them 'aloof and rather pleased with themselves' (they even bought sketches from Adams, but wouldn't let him perform) and he joined CULES (Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society) instead. Before and while he studied at Cambridge he decided to hitch-hike to Istanbul and all over Europe. In order to make the money for his travels he worked as a chicken-shed cleaner, barn builder and hospital porter (in the X-ray department of Yeovil General Hospital; he was not unfamiliar with this kind of job as he had worked in an institution for the mentally ill while he was still at school). In his second term he joined Footlights on the strength of Simon Jones, who was 'friendly and helpful, all the things the others weren't, a completely nice guy.' But as his ideas were not accepted by the rest, he ended up forming the 'guerilla' revue group Adams-Smith-Adams together with Adams and Smith. They hired a theatre for a week and with them he had his first considerable hit. In summer 1974 Douglas left Cambridge and had finally decided to become a writer.
Education
He worked with many now famous comedy stars. He got Griff Rhys Jones into comedy and directed A Kick In The Stalls, which later got the attention of Graham Chapman who he then collaborated with on a TV comedy show called Out Of The Trees. It involved a man picking a flower - a seemingly innocuous act which triggers off a series of events: the police complain, the fire brigade turns up, then the army and so on until the world blows up. He also worked on several other projects, and among other things he submitted sketches for the Burkiss Way, Monty Python's Flying Circus and Weekending. Following this, Adams entered a rather barren period work-wise, due largely to the uncompromising nature of his work - his approach was one of a man who adapted the world to fit his comedy rather than the other way round, and so he struggled with the traditional radio comedy sketch format. Despite attempts to get him work by friends such as John Lloyd, during this time Adams was forced to live with his mother and take on another series of character-building jobs, such as that of bodyguard to the ruling family of Qatar. He moved from radio to become script editor of Doctor Who, where he was involved in the creation of several stories for the Tom Baker incarnation of the character. During this time he co-wrote City of Death, widely considered to be the best Doctor Who story ever, as well as The Pirate Planet and the ultimately unfinished story Shada. He would work with Tom again in 1990 for the documentary Hyperland.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
It was while Adams was writing for Doctor Who that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was comissioned, originally appearing as a Radio 4 series in March 1978. Since then it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a television series, records, cassettes and CDs, a computer game, several stage adaptations and now...a major film. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in its initial form (radio), was the story of the demolition of planet Earth and the subsequent adventures of the very, very few survivors and those they meet along the way. It introduced the world to characters such as Marvin, the paranoid android (inspiration behind the Radiohead song title of the same name), a race of people who construct planets, and, of course, the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe and Everything, 42.
Other Work
Douglas Adams's other publications include the two Dirk Gently novels, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (which recycled many of the ideas from Adams's legendary, never-broadcast Doctor Who story, Shada) and The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Gently (real name Svlad Cjelli) is a detective/conman who runs up massive expenses bills as a by-product of his belief in the 'fundamental interconnectedness of things.' He began a third novel, The Salmon of Doubt, but didn't complete it. With long-time friend John Lloyd, Adams also composed two quasi-reference books, The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff, wherein town names were used to fill in the gaps in the English language, for example using the name Ely to denote the first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone horribly wrong. Additionally, he teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine in 1990 and wrote Last Chance to See - an account of their worldwide search for rare and endangered animal species.
A Hitchhicker's Good Bye
On the morning of 11 May, 2001, Douglas went to the local gym to work out. He had been walking the treadmill and went on for some aerobics. Peter, his trainer, examined Douglas and found his heart-rate quite normal, around 130. After aerobics it was time for some gym workout. First up was stomach crunches, and Douglas lay down on the bench. The trainer turned to get Douglas's towel, and when he turned back to hand it over, Douglas rolled off the bench, suffering a massive heart attack. All attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. Peter got on the phone and called Jane, saying Douglas had fainted and had been taken to the hospital. By the time of his death he had just finished a draft of the screenplay to a feature movie of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We later learned that he had a narrowing of the arteries in the heart, a condition which is hard to detect, as well as an arrhythmic heartbeat, which is usually benign. These two factors together mean that it would have happened sooner or later anyway. Douglas is buried in Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, England, plot: Square 74, Plot 52377. He was cremated, along with his towel, at 7.30pm British time, on 16 May, 2001 in Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
See Also: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Ultimate Answer.
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