Keith Spencer Waterhouse (6 February 1929 – 4 September 2009) was a British novelist and newspaper columnist and the writer of many television series.

Biography

Keith Waterhouse was born in

Hunslet Hunslet () is an inner-city area in south Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is southeast of the city centre and has an industrial past. It is situated in the Hunslet and Riverside ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds Central parliamenta ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, England. He performed two years of

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

. His credits, many with lifelong friend and collaborator Willis Hall, include

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

s such as '' That Was The Week That Was'', '' BBC-3'' and '' The Frost Report'' during the 1960s; the book for the 1975 musical ''

The Card ''The Card'' is a comic novel written by Arnold Bennett in 1911 (entitled ''Denry the Audacious'' in the American edition). It was later made into a 1952 movie, starring Alec Guinness and Petula Clark. Like much of Bennett's best work, it i ...

''; '' Budgie''; '' Worzel Gummidge''; and '' Andy Capp'' (an adaptation of the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

). His 1959 book ''

Billy Liar ''Billy Liar'' is a 1959 novel by Keith Waterhouse that was later adapted into a play, a film, a musical and a TV series. The work has inspired and been featured in a number of popular songs. The semi-comical story is about William Fisher, ...

'' was subsequently filmed 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 ...

with

Tom Courtenay Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of t ...

as Billy. It was nominated in six categories of the 1964 BAFTA awards, including Best Screenplay, and was nominated for the Golden Lion at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

in 1963; in the early 1970s the sitcom ''

'' based on the character was quite popular and ran to 25 episodes. Waterhouse's first screenplay was the film '' Whistle Down the Wind'' (1961). Without receiving screen credit, Waterhouse and Hall extensively rewrote the original script for

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

's '' Torn Curtain'' (1966). Waterhouse wrote the comic play, '' Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell'' (1989;

Old Vic Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England * Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Ma ...

premiere, 1999), based on the louche life of London journalist

Jeffrey Bernard Jeffrey Joseph Bernard (; 27 May 1932 – 4 September 1997) was an English journalist, best known for his weekly column "Low Life" in ''The Spectator'' magazine, and also notorious for a feckless and chaotic career and life of alcohol abus ...

. His career began at the ''

Yorkshire Evening Post The ''Yorkshire Evening Post'' is a daily evening publication (delivered to newsagents every morning) published by Yorkshire Post Newspapers in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The paper provides a regional slant on the day's news, and traditi ...

'' and he also wrote regularly for ''

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pu ...

'', the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its Masthead (British publishing), masthead was simpl ...

'', and latterly for the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

''. He initially joined the ''Mirror'' as a reporter in 1952, before he became a playwright and novelist; during his initial stint, he campaigned against the colour bar in post-war Britain, the abuses committed in the name of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and the British government's selling of weapons to various

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

ern countries. Subsequently, he returned as a columnist, initially in the ''Mirror Magazine'', moving to the main newspaper on 22 June 1970, on Mondays, and extending to Thursdays from 16 July 1970. Extracts from the columns were published in the books ''Mondays, Thursdays'' and ''Rhubarb, Rhubarb and Other Noises''. His extended style book for the ''Daily Mirror'', ''Waterhouse on Newspaper Style'', is regarded as a classic textbook for modern journalism. This was followed by a pocket book on English usage intended for a wider audience entitled ''English Our English (And How To Sing It)''. He moved from the ''Mirror'' to the ''Mail'' in 1986 out of his objection to the ''Mirrors ownership by

Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, Parliament of the United Kingdom, member of parliament (MP), suspected spy, and fraudster. Early i ...

, and remained at the ''Mail'' until shortly before his death. He fought long crusades to highlight what he perceived to be a decline in the standards of modern English; for example, he founded the Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe, whose members attempt to stem the tide of such solecisms as "potatoe's" and "pound's of apple's and orange's" in greengrocers' shops. In February 2004, he was voted Britain's most admired contemporary columnist by the ''

British Journalism Review ''British Journalism Review'' is an opinionated quarterly journal covering the field of journalism. The journal's editor is Kim Fletcher who is supported by an editorial board of journalists and journalism academics. It was established in 1989 and ...

''.

Death

On 4 September 2009, a statement released by his family announced that Waterhouse had died quietly in his sleep at his home in London. He was 80 years old.

Works

References

External links

Keith Waterhouse in conversation (BBC TV 1985)
*
Times of London obituary

- Daily Telegraph obituary
Keith Waterhouse
- Guardian obituary * Th
Keith Waterhouse archive
is housed at Special Collections and Archives, Cardiff University. {{DEFAULTSORT:Waterhouse, Keith 1929 births 2009 deaths Daily Mail journalists Daily Mirror people Punch (magazine) people British male journalists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English columnists English essayists English satirists Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Writers from Leeds 20th-century Royal Air Force personnel British male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English novelists 21st-century English novelists British male essayists English male novelists 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century essayists 21st-century essayists 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers English male non-fiction writers People from Hunslet