Frederic Michael Raphael (born 14 August 1931) is an American-British BAFTA and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

winning screenwriter, biographer, nonfiction writer, novelist and journalist.

Early life

Raphael was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, to an

American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from dias ...

mother from Chicago, Irene Rose (nee Mauser) and a

British Jewish British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British citizens who identify as Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021. History ...

father, Cederic Michael Raphael, an employee of the Shell Oil Company who had been transferred to the United States from Shell's London office. In 1938, when Raphael was seven, and to his surprise, the family migrated to EnglandFrederic Raphael, ''Antiquity Matters'' (2017), "Introduction", p. ix: "I am an accidental classicist. Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931, with every expectation of growing up in America..." and settled in

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient paris ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He was educated at Copthorne Preparatory School,

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

, and

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...

Career

Raphael won an Oscar for the screenplay for the movie '' Darling'' (1965), and two years later received an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for '' Two for the Road''. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1967 film adaptation of

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wor ...

's ''

Far From the Madding Crowd ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in '' Cornhill Magazine'', where it gained a wide readership. The novel is set ...

'' directed by

John Schlesinger John Richard Schlesinger (; 16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003) was an English film and stage director. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for ''Midnight Cowboy'', and was nominated for the same award for two other films ('' Darling'' an ...

. His articles and book reviews appear in a number of newspapers and magazines, including the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' and ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

''. He has published more than twenty novels, the best-known being the semi-autobiographical '' The Glittering Prizes'' (1976), which traces the lives of a group of

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

undergraduates in post-war Britain as they move through university and into the wider world. The original six-part BBC television series, from which the book was adapted, won him a

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

Writer of the Year Award. The sequel, ''Fame and Fortune'', which continues the story to 1979, was adapted in 2007 and broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

. In 2010, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a further sequel in a series entitled ''Final Demands'', with

Tom Conti Tommaso Antonio Conti (born 22 November 1941) is a Scottish actor, theatre director, and novelist. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1979 for his performance in '' Whose Life Is It Anyway?'' and was nominated for the Academy Aw ...

as Adam Morris, the central character, bringing the story to the late 1990s. Raphael has published several history books, collections of essays and translations. He has also written biographies of

W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

and

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

. He was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, ele ...

in 1964. In 1999, Raphael published ''Eyes Wide Open'', a memoir of his collaboration with the director

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

on the screenplay of ''

Eyes Wide Shut ''Eyes Wide Shut'' is a 1999 erotic mystery psychological drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the 1926 novella '' Traumnovelle'' (''Dream Story'') by Arthur Schnitzler, transferring the story's set ...

'', Kubrick's final movie. Raphael wrote a detailed account of his working with Kubrick, based on his own journals, but upon its publication the book was publicly criticised by several of the director's friends and family members, among them

Christiane Kubrick Christiane Susanne Kubrick (née Harlan; born 10 May 1932) is a German actress. She was born into a theatrical family (her uncle was the film director Veit Harlan), and was the wife of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick from 1958 until his death in 1999 ...

Jan Harlan Jan Harlan (born 5 May 1937) is a German-American executive producer and the brother of Christiane Kubrick, director Stanley Kubrick's widow. He is the nephew of the film director Veit Harlan. Life Jan Harlan was born in Karlsruhe in 1937, th ...

, and Michael Herr, for its unflattering portrayal of him. Referring to an article by Raphael about his book in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'',

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Sp ...

and

Tom Cruise Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), known professionally as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actors, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Go ...

also professed criticism. That year,

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Arthur Schnitzler Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. Biography Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire (as of 1867, part of the dual monarchy ...

's '' Dream Story'', the basis for ''

'', featuring a new introduction by Raphael.

Personal life

He married Sylvia Betty Glatt on 17 January 1955, and they had three children. His daughter, Sarah Raphael, was an English artist known for her portraits. She died in 2001.

Selected works

Film and TV

Fiction

* ''Obbligato'' (1956) * ''The Earlsdon Way'' (1958) * ''The Limits of Love'' (1960) * ''A Wild Surmise'' (1961) * ''The Graduate Wife'' (1962) * ''The Trouble with England'' (1962) * ''Lindmann'' (1963) * ''Orchestra and Beginners'' (1967) * ''Like Men Betrayed'' (1970) * ''Who Were You With Last Night?'' (1971) * ''April, June and November'' (1972) * ''Richard's Things'' (1973) * ''California Time'' (1975) * ''The Glittering Prizes'' (1976) (adapted from the TV series) * ''Sleeps Six and other stories'' (1979) (short story collection) * ''Heaven and Earth'' (1985) * ''Think of England'' (1986) * ''After the War'' (1990) * ''The Hidden Eye'' (1990) * ''Of Gods and Men'' (1992) * ''A Double Life'' (1993) * ''Coast to Coast'' (1998) * ''Fame and Fortune'' (2007) (sequel to ''The Glittering Prizes'') * ''Final Demands'' (2010) (sequel to ''Fame and Fortune'') * ''Private Views'' (2015) * ''The Limits of Love'' (2020)

Non-fiction

* ''Somerset Maugham and his World'' (1976) * ''The List of Books: A Library of Over 3000 Works'' (with

Kenneth McLeish John Kenneth Tyrrell McLeish, known as Kenneth McLeish (1940-1997) was a British writer, playwright and translator. McLeish, "the most widely respected and prolific translator of drama in Britain", translated all the surviving classical Greek pla ...

)

Harmony Books Harmony Books is an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, itself part of publisher Penguin Random House. It was founded by Bruce Harris, a Crown executive, in 1972. The imprint has been used for such books as: * Jill Freedman, ''Circus Days'' ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, 1981. . * ''The Necessity of Anti-Semitism'' (1998) * ''Popper: Historicism and Its Poverty'' 1998 * ''Some Talk of Alexander: A Journey Through Space and Time in the Greek World'' (2006) * ''Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English & American Literature'' (2007) (Illustrated by

Barry Moser Barry Moser (born 1940) is an American artist and educator, known as a printmaker specializing in wood engravings, and an illustrator of numerous works of literature. He is also the owner and operator of the Pennyroyal Press, an engraving and smal ...

) * ''How Stanley Kubrick Met His Waterloo'' (2011) for the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

* ''A Jew Among Romans: The Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus'' (2013) * ''Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet'' (2013) with

Joseph Epstein Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans. Communi ...

* ''Where Were We?: The Conversation Continues'' (2015) with Joseph Epstein * ''Anti-Semitism'' (2015)

Translations

* ''The serpent son = Oresteia'' by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Gree ...

(translated with

) (1978) * ''The Poems of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...

'' (translated with

) (1979)

Memoirs

* ''Eyes Wide Open'' (1999) * ''Personal Terms'' (2001) * ''The Benefit of Doubt: Essays'' (2003) * ''A Spoilt Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood'' (2003) * ''Rough Copy: Personal Terms 2'' (2004) * ''Cuts and Bruises: Personal Terms 3'' (2006) * ''Ticks and Crosses: Personal Terms 4'' (2009) * ''Ifs and Buts: Personal Terms 5'' (2011) * ''There and Then: Personal Terms 6'' (2013) * ''Going Up: To Cambridge and Beyond - A Writer's Memoir'' (2015) * ''Against the Stream: Personal Terms 7'' (2018)

References

External links

Raphael film reference entry
*
Raphael's BFI entry

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raphael, Frederic 1931 births Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Best British Screenplay BAFTA Award winners Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners British writers Jewish American journalists Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Living people People educated at Copthorne Preparatory School People educated at Charterhouse School 21st-century American Jews