Stanley Price (writer)

This article is about the writer. For the actor, see Stanley Price.
Stanley Price

Stanley Price
Born 12 August 1931
Spouse(s) Judy Fenton (m. 1957)
Children Munro Price

Stanley Price is a novelist and playwright who has written for the theatre, film and television since the mid sixties. [1]

Biography

Born in London, Price was educated there, in Dublin and at the Perse School, Cambridge. He did National Service in the Army before going to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,[2] to read History. [1] He started his career as a journalist, working as a reporter on Life magazine in New York from 1957-60.[3] In 1960 he returned to London where he contributed to numerous papers and magazines.[4]

His first novel, Crusading for Kronk,[5] was published in 1960 by Gollancz in the U.K. This was followed by A World of Difference (Michael Joseph 1961), Just for the Record (Michael Joseph,1962) and The Biggest Picture (Michael Joseph, 1964). All four were published in the U.S. and the U.K., and the last two in paperback by Penguin.

When Price found that he was enjoying writing the dialogue in his novels more than the descriptions that linked them, he turned to writing plays. In 1967 his first play, Horizontal Hold, was produced by the legendary Hugh (Binkie) Beaumont of H.M. Tennant and had a short, but happy life in the West End at the Comedy Theatre. His next play, The Starving Rich, a comedy set in a health clinic, never found a London home, but had two U.K. tours, and subsequently had many international productions. In Germany, retitled Ein Yoghurt fur Zwei, it ran in repertory in certain regional theatres for over fifteen years, and became known as 'The Mousetrap of Mannheim'. In 1982, Price returned to the West End with Moving which had a successful run with Penelope Keith, who later starred in the television series of the play. In 1986, Why Me?, a black comedy about executive unemployment, ran at the Strand Theatre with a much-acclaimed performance by Richard Briers.

Price has also written and re-written many film screenplays. These include co-writer credits on Arabesque, 1967(Sophie Loren and Gregory Peck), Gold, 1974 (Roger Moore and Susannah York), Shout at the Devil, 1976 (Roger Moore and Lee Marvin). More recently, his original screenplays and adaptations have been written principally for television, several of them winning international awards, including, in 1996, the American cable television's Ace Award for best screenplay for Genghis Cohn (after the book by Romain Gary). This also won the best screenplay award at the Rheims International Television Festival in 1995. Close Relations had also won this award in 1991.

Plays

Television screenplays

Novels

Non-fiction

Stanley Price is also a frequent contributor to The Oldie.

References

  1. 1 2 International Who's Who of Authors and Writers. Europa Publications. 2004. p. 455. ISBN 9781857431797. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  2. ↑ Brooke, Christopher (1996). A History of Gonville and Caius College. Boydell Press. p. 284. ISBN 9780851154237.
  3. ↑ Price, Stanley (30 November 1959). "Various". Life Magazine. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Lewis, Jeremy (2008). Grub Street Irregular: Scenes from Literary Life. HarperPress. ISBN 9780002559065.
  5. ↑ Crusading for Kronk. Google Books. Gollancz. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  6. ↑ Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Daniel (2005). Boulevard Comedy Theatre in Germany. Cambridge Scholars Press. p. 51. ISBN 9781904303480.
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