Raymond John Hitchcock (9 February 1922 – 23 February 1992) was an English
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 other ...
,
screenwriter
A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...
, and
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...
, He is best remembered for his novel ''
Percy'', which was the basis for a
1971 film of the same name. Several of his earlier books were light-hearted sexual farces; his later titles included several thrillers. He was the father of English musician
Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock (born 3 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the ...
. His daughter Lal is a sculptor, and daughter Fleur is a children's author.
Hitchcock was born in Calcutta, India in 1922 to English parents. At age 22, his right knee was hit by shrapnel during the Invasion of Normandy, Battle of Normandy, leaving him unable to bend it for the rest of his life.
He spent 9 months in hospital recovering, and very nearly had to have the leg amputated.
He trained as an engineer, working in telecommunications, before abandoning this career to concentrate on creating cartoons. From there he drifted into writing, his first novel being successful enough to be turned into a film of the same title.
[Harris, W.]
A chat with Robyn Hitchcock
" bullz-eye.com, 10 February 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2013. Apart from writing novels, he wrote the screenplays of several short plays which appeared in such series as ''Play for Today'' and ''Thirty-Minute Theatre''.
Hitchcock died of cancer in Winchester, England in 1992 shortly after his 70th birthday.
Books
*''
Percy'' (1969)
*''The Gilt Edged Boy'' (1971)
*''Percy's Progress'' (1972)
*''There's a Girl in My Soup'' (1972) (novelisation of the There's a Girl in My Soup, film of the same name;)
*''Venus 13: A Cautionary Space Tale'' (1972)
*''Attack the Lusitania!'' (1979) (later retitled ''The Lusitania Plot'')
*''The Canaris Legacy'' (1980)
*''Sea Wrack'' (1982)
*''Archangel 006'' (1983)
*''The Tunnellers'' (1986)
*''Checkmate Budapest'' (1988)
*''Fighting Cancer: A Personal Story'' (1989) (memoir)
References
External links
*
1922 births
1992 deaths
English male screenwriters
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English screenwriters
20th-century English male writers
British people in colonial India
British military personnel of World War II
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