David Malcolm Storey (13 July 1933 – 27 March 2017) was an English

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

, award-winning

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while othe ...

and a professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

player. He won the

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...

in 1976 for his novel '' Saville''. He also won the MacMillan Fiction Award for '' This Sporting Life'' in 1960.

Early life and career

Storey was born on 13 July 1933 in

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population ...

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 ...

, the son of a coal miner, Frank Richmond Story, and Lily (née Cartwright) Story. He was educated at QEGS Wakefield. He continued his education at London's

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, and supported himself there by playing

for Leeds RLFC as a for the "A" team, with occasional appearances in the first. His plays include ''The Restoration of Arnold Middleton'', '' The Changing Room'', ''Cromwell'', ''

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it ...

'', and ''Stages''. His novels include ''

Flight into Camden ''Flight into Camden'' is a 1961 novel by British author and playwright David Storey. It won the 1963 Somerset Maugham Prize The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by Willia ...

'', which won the 1961

John Llewellyn Rhys Prize The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom ...

and the 1963 Somerset Maugham Award; and '' Saville'', which won the 1976

. He wrote the screenplay for '' This Sporting Life'' (1963), directed by

Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered f ...

, adapted from his first novel of the same name, originally published in 1960, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. The film was the beginning of a long professional association with Anderson, whose film version of Storey's play '' In Celebration'' was released as part of the American Film Theatre series in 1975. ''

'' and ''Early Days'' (both starred Sir

Ralph Richardson Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He w ...

; ''Home'' also starred Sir

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...

) were made into television films. Storey's novel ''Pasmore'' was shortlisted for the

. National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C464/67) with David Storey in 2008-2009 for its National Life Stories General collection held by the British Library.National Life Stories, Storey, David (1 of 12). National Life Story Collection: General, The British Library Board, 2009
Retrieved 1 February 2018.

Personal life and death

Grave of David Storey in Highgate Cemetery

In 1956, Storey married Barbara Rudd Hamilton, with whom he had four children. Barbara Storey died in 2015. Storey died on 27 March 2017 in London at the age of 83 and was buried on the eastern side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

. The cause was

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

and

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

. Survivors include his two sons, Jake and Sean; two daughters, Helen and

Kate Kate name may refer to: People and fictional characters * Kate (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Gyula Káté (born 1982), Hungarian amateur boxer * Lauren Kate (born 1981), American aut ...

; a brother, Anthony; and six grandchildren.

Works

*'' This Sporting Life'' (1960) (made into the 1963 film '' This Sporting Life'') *''

'' (1961) - winner of the 1963 Somerset Maugham Award *''Radcliffe'' (1963) *''The Restoration of Arnold Middleton'' (1967) *'' In Celebration'' (1969) *''The Contractor'' (1970) *''

'' (1970) *'' The Changing Room'' (1973) *'' Pasmore'' (1972) – winner of the 1973 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize *''The Farm'' (1973) *''Cromwell'' (1973) () *''A Temporary Life'' (1973) () *''Edward'' (1973) () *''Life Class'' (1974) *'' Saville'' (1976) – winner of the 1976

*''Mother's Day'' (1977) *''Early Days'' (1980) *''Sisters'' (1980) *''A Prodigal Child'' (1982) *''Present Times'' (1984) *''The March on Russia'' (1989) *''Storey's Lives: 1951–1991'' (1992) () *''A Serious Man'' (1998) *'' As It Happened'' (2002) *''Thin-Ice Skater'' (2004) *''A Stinging Delight (''Autobiography'')'' (Faber & Faber, 2021)

References

Sources

* Harrison, Juliet Francis ''Artistic Fictions: The Representation of the Artist Figure in Works by David Storey,

John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Af ...

and Tom Stoppard'' (Ph.D., Exeter). *Hutchings, William, ed. ''David Storey: A Casebook''. NY: Garland, 1992. *Hutchings, William. ''The Plays of David Storey: A Thematic Study''. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. *Liebman, Herbert ''The Dramatic Art of David Storey: The Journey of a Playwright'', Greenwood Press. *Schafer, Stephen C. "An Overview of the Working Classes in British Feature Film from the 1960s to the 1980s: From Class Consciousness to Marginalization", ''International Labor and Working-Class History'' 59: 3–14. *''Encyclopedia of British Film'' *''Contemporary Authors''

External links

Information on Storey's plays
{{DEFAULTSORT:Storey, David 1933 births 2017 deaths Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Burials at Highgate Cemetery English male dramatists and playwrights English male novelists English screenwriters English male screenwriters People educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield People from Wakefield Booker Prize winners John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English male writers English rugby league players