Christopher Landon

Last updated
Christopher Landon
Born(1911-03-29)29 March 1911
West Byfleet, Surrey, England
Died 26 April 1961(1961-04-26) (aged 50)
Frognal, England
Nationality British
Other namesChristopher Guy Landon
Occupation writer
author

Christopher Guy Landon, known as Christopher Landon (29 March 1911 – 26 April 1961) was a British novelist and screenwriter best known for the novel and film Ice Cold in Alex .

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 writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to support themselves in this way or write as an avocation. Most novelists struggle to get their debut novel published, but once published they often continue to be published, although very few become literary celebrities, thus gaining prestige or a considerable income from their work.

Screenwriter writer who writes for TV, films, comics and games

A screenplay writer, scriptwriter 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.

<i>Ice Cold in Alex</i> 1958 film by J. Lee Thompson

Ice Cold in Alex (1958) is a British film described as a true story in the film's opening credits, based on the novel of the same name by British author Christopher Landon. Directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring John Mills, the film was a prizewinner at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was not released in the United States by 20th Century Fox until 1961, in an edited version that was 54 minutes shorter than the original, under the title Desert Attack.

Contents

Biography

Landon was born in West Byfleet, Surrey. [1] His father was a stockjobber of Huguenot descent and he was a distant cousin of the author Perceval Landon. He was educated at Lancing College and Cambridge University. [1] He studied medicine.

West Byfleet village in United Kingdom

West Byfleet is a village in Surrey which grew up around its relatively minor stop on the London & South Western Railway: the station, originally Byfleet and Woodham, opened in 1887. More than 1 mile (1.6 km) from the medieval village of Byfleet, the initial concentration of a new development soon established its own economy apart from that of a dependent London commuter village and spread in most directions to its borders including to the border of the old settlement, divided by the shielded London Orbital motorway today. The first place of worship was dedicated in 1912, the parish of West Byfleet associated with it was established in 1917. The village is bounded to the north by the Basingstoke Canal and to the east by the M25 and the Wey Navigation Canal. Forming part of the contiguous development centred on London and its 'stockbroker belt' just outside the M25 motorway, it is 8 miles from London Heathrow and equidistant between the business parks of Woking and Brooklands. In local government it forms a ward on the same basis as its parish in the Borough of Woking.

Surrey County of England

Surrey is a subdivision of the English region of South East England in the United Kingdom. A historic and ceremonial county, Surrey is also one of the home counties. The county borders Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west, Berkshire to the northwest, and Greater London to the northeast.

Stockjobbers were institutions that acted as market makers in the London Stock Exchange. Prior to "Big Bang" in 1986, every stock traded on the Exchange passed through a 'jobber's book', that is, they acted as the ultimate purchasers of shares sold and the source of shares purchased, by stockbrokers on behalf of the latters' clients. Stockbrokers in turn were not permitted to be market makers.

Christopher Landon served with the 51st Field Ambulance in North Africa during the Second World War and with the 1st S.A. Division. He ended the war with the rank of Major in the Royal Army Service Corps. [2]

Royal Army Service Corps

The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and domestic materials such as clothing, furniture and stationery and the supply of technical and military equipment. In 1965 its functions were divided between other Corps and the RASC ceased to exist; subsequently, in 1993, they in their turn became the "Forming Corps" of the Royal Logistic Corps.

After the war he wrote several novels including A Flag in the City (1953), a fictional account of World War II British intelligence plans to destroy German fifth column operations in Persia; Stone Cold Dead in the Market; Hornet's Nest; Dead Men Rise Up Never; and Unseen Enemy (also known as The Shadow of Time).

This article presents lists of literary events and publications in 1953.

He died of accidental alcohol and barbiturate poisoning at his home in Frognal in 1961, leaving a wife and three children. [1] [3]

Alcohol any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) is bound to a saturated carbon atom

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) is bound to a carbon. The term alcohol originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol, which is used as a drug and is the main alcohol present in alcoholic beverages. An important class of alcohols, of which methanol and ethanol are the simplest members, includes all compounds for which the general formula is CnH2n+1OH. It is these simple monoalcohols that are the subject of this article.

Barbiturate drug that acts as central nervous system depressants

A barbiturate is a drug that acts as a central nervous system depressant, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to death. Barbiturates are effective as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and anticonvulsants, but have physical and psychological addiction potential. They have largely been replaced by benzodiazepines in routine medical practice, particularly in the treatment of anxiety and insomnia, due to the significantly lower risk of addiction and overdose and the lack of an antidote for barbiturate overdose. Despite this, barbiturates are still in use for various purposes: in general anesthesia, epilepsy, treatment of acute migraines or cluster headaches, euthanasia, capital punishment, and assisted suicide.

Frognal area of Hampstead, North West London in the London Borough of Camden

Frognal is a small area of Hampstead, North West London in the London Borough of Camden. Frognal is reinforced as the name of a minor road, which goes uphill from Finchley Road and at its upper end is in the west of Hampstead village.

Related Research Articles

Spy fiction, a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device, emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies.

Graham Greene English writer, playwright and literary critic

Henry Graham Greene, better known by his pen name Graham Greene, was an English novelist regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers. He was shortlisted, in 1966 and 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Through 67 years of writings, which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective.

C. P. Snow British writer

Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, CBE was a novelist and English physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government. He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers, and for The Two Cultures, a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".

Christopher Isherwood English novelist

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist. His best-known works include The Berlin Stories (1935–39), two semi-autobiographical novellas inspired by Isherwood's time in Weimar Republic Germany. These enhanced his postwar reputation when they were adapted first into the play I Am a Camera (1951), then the 1955 film of the same name, I am a Camera; much later (1966) into the bravura stage musical Cabaret which was acclaimed on Broadway, and Bob Fosse's inventive re-creation for the film Cabaret (1972). His novel A Single Man was published in 1964 and adapted into the film of the same name in 2009.

John le Carré British novelist and spy

David John Moore Cornwell, better known by the pen name John le Carré, is a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author. Several of his books have been adapted for film and television. In 2011, he was awarded the Goethe Medal.

James Dickey American writer

James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award. Dickey was best known for his novel Deliverance (1970) which was adapted into an acclaimed film of the same name.

Christopher Logue, CBE was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival, and a pacifist.

A comic novel is a novel-length work of humorous fiction. Many well-known authors have written comic novels, including P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Fielding, Mark Twain, and John Kennedy Toole.

W. G. Sebald German writer and academic

Winfried Georg Sebald, known as W. G. Sebald or Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In a 2007 interview, Horace Engdahl, former secretary of the Swedish Academy, mentioned Sebald, Ryszard Kapuściński and Jacques Derrida as three recently deceased writers who would have been worthy laureates.

Thomas Louis Berger was an American novelist. Probably best known for his picaresque novel Little Big Man and the subsequent film by Arthur Penn, Berger explored and manipulated many genres of fiction throughout his career, including the crime novel, the hard-boiled detective story, science fiction, the utopian novel, plus re-workings of classical mythology, Arthurian legend, and the survival adventure. Berger's biting wit led many reviewers to refer to him as a satirist or "comic" novelist, descriptions he preferred to reject. His admirers often bemoaned that his talent and achievement were under-appreciated, in view of his versatility across many forms of fiction, his precise use of language, and his probing intelligence.

A war novel is a novel in which the primary action takes place on a battlefield, or in a civilian setting, where the characters are either preoccupied with the preparations for, suffering the effects of, or recovering from war. Many war novels are historical novels.

<i>Liseys Story</i> novel by Stephen King

Lisey's Story is a novel by American writer Stephen King that combines the elements of psychological horror and romance. It was released on October 24, 2006, and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2007. An early excerpt from the novel, "Lisey and the Madman", was published in McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (2004), and was nominated for the 2004 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction. King stated that this is his favorite of the novels he has written.

Christopher John Koch AO was an Australian novelist, known for his 1978 novel The Year of Living Dangerously, which was adapted into an award-winning film. He twice won the Miles Franklin Award. In 1995, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from his alma mater, the University of Tasmania, in 1990.

John David Caute is a British author, novelist, playwright, historian and journalist.

James Kennaway was a Scottish novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Auchterarder in Perthshire and attended Glenalmond College.

Landon is a personal name of English origin that means "long hill". It is a variant of Langdon. Landon became popular in the United States in the 1990s, and by 2010 had become the 32nd most popular name for boys. Landon may refer to:

<i>The Miernik Dossier</i> book by Charles McCarry

The Miernik Dossier, published by the Saturday Review Press in 1973, was the first of seven novels by the American novelist Charles McCarry featuring an American intelligence agent named Paul Christopher. Set in 1959 in Europe and Africa during the days of the Cold War, it is narrated in the form of reports, overheard conversations, and various documents from a multitude of sources of different nationalities, supposedly giving the reader an authentic picture of what an actual intelligence operation might be like. McCarry had previously been an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency for nine years, and the book was hailed for its apparent authenticity and realistic depiction of tradecraft. It received excellent reviews, and instantly established McCarry's reputation as one of the foremost American novelists of espionage. Later books by McCarry, nine more in all, expanded from focusing solely on Christopher into what might be considered a chronicle of the Christopher universe: two novels feature his cousins, the Hubbards, and in many of the other Christopher novels his father, mother, one-time wife, and daughter play important and recurring roles. Also in this universe is a 1988 historical novel, The Bride of the Wilderness, about Christopher's ancestors in 17th-century England, France, and Massachusetts. Like all of McCarry's books, this one displays "an almost Jamesian awareness of [its] European locale, the special authenticity of a loving expatriate writing of an adopted foreign land."

Walter Baxter English novelist

Walter Baxter was an English novelist, best known for writing two controversial novels. His first novel received very positive reviews. He was prosecuted on obscenity charges after the publication of his second novel, but was acquitted after two trials. He was also a successful restaurateur.

John Kruse (1921–2004) was an English film and television screenwriter, director and novelist. He is mostly remembered for his work on ITC classic TV series The Saint, as well as several films of the franchise, and as the author of the best-selling novel Red Omega.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Chibnall, Steve (2000). J. Lee Thompson. Manchester University Press. p. 227. ISBN   9780719060120.
  2. "Landon of Uxmore". Burke's Landed Gentry (1952 ed.).
  3. ""Accidental Death" Of Novelist". The Times. 2 May 1961.