John Dighton

Last updated

John Gervase Dighton [1] (8 December 1909 [1] 16 April 1989) was a British playwright and screenwriter.

Contents

Dighton was born in London to Basil Lewis Dighton, of West Kensington, an antiques dealer, author and poet, and his wife Beatrice Mary (née Franks). [2] [3] He was educated at Charterhouse School and Caius College, Cambridge. [2]

His output during the 1940s included the last starring features of comedian Will Hay, and several George Formby films as well as the 1947 adaptation of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby , and the 1943 war movie Undercover starring John Clements and Michael Wilding.

In 1947, Dighton wrote his first play for the theatre, The Happiest Days of Your Life , which ran in the West End for more than 600 performances in 1948 and 1949. [4] For Ealing Studios, he collaborated on the screenplays of such comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Man in the White Suit (1952), sharing an Academy Award nomination for the latter. He gained a second nomination for the American-financed Roman Holiday (1953).

Two of his stage plays, The Happiest Days of Your Life and Who Goes There! (known as The Passionate Sentry in the USA), were successfully adapted for the screen by Dighton himself, the former in collaboration with Frank Launder. He also wrote the 1955 comedy play Man Alive! that transferred to the West End the following year with Robertson Hare in the lead. He adapted the play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll . [5]

His final screen credit was his adaptation of Shaw's The Devil's Disciple , written in collaboration with Roland Kibbee.

Dighton married Kathleen Marie Philipps in 1934. [2]

Partial filmography as screenwriter

Selected plays

Related Research Articles

Valerie Hobson British actress

Babette Louisa Valerie Hobson was a British actress who appeared in a number of films during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Her second husband was John Profumo, a British government minister who became the subject of a sensational sex scandal in 1963.

Miles Malleson

William Miles Malleson was an English actor and dramatist, particularly remembered for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career he also appeared in cameo roles in several Hammer horror films, with a fairly large role in The Brides of Dracula as the hypochondriac and fee-hungry local doctor. Malleson was also a writer on many films, including some of those in which he had small parts, such as Nell Gwyn (1934) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). He also translated and adapted several of Molière's plays.

Jean Del Val French-born actor in American films, 1891–1975

Jean Del Val was a French-born actor, also credited as Jean Gauthier and Jean Gautier.

John Hamilton (actor) American actor (1887–1958)

John Rummel Hamilton was an American actor who appeared in many movies and television programs, including the role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.

Douglas Fowley American actor (1911–1998)

Douglas Fowley was an American movie and television actor in more than 240 films and dozens of television programs, He is probably best remembered for his role as the frustrated movie director Roscoe Dexter in Singin' in the Rain (1952), and for his regular supporting role as Doc Holliday in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. He is the father of rock and roll musician and record producer Kim Fowley.

Lew Landers was an American independent film and television director.

Kelville Ernest Irving was an English music director, conductor and composer, primarily remembered as a theatre musician in London between the wars, and for his key contributions to British film music as music director at Ealing Studios from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Michael Relph

Michael Leighton George Relph was an English film producer, art director, screenwriter and film director. He was the son of actor George Relph.

George Zucco English actor

George Zucco was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951. In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor.

Philip Van Zandt Dutch-American actor (1904–1958)

Philip "Phil" Van Zandt was a Dutch-American actor of film, stage and television. He made over 220 film and television appearances between 1939 and 1958.

Stanley Andrews American actor (1891–1969)

Stanley Andrews was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program Little Orphan Annie and later as "The Old Ranger", the first host of the syndicated western anthology television series, Death Valley Days.

William Haade American actor

William Haade was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1937 and 1957. He was born in New York City and died in Los Angeles, California.

William Lundigan American actor (1914–1975)

William Paul Lundigan was an American film actor. His more than 125 films include Dodge City (1939), The Fighting 69th (1940), The Sea Hawk (1940), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Dishonored Lady (1947), Pinky (1949), Love Nest (1951) with Marilyn Monroe, The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), I'd Climb the Highest Mountain (1951) and Inferno (1953).

John Slater (actor) British actor

John Slater was a British character actor who usually portrayed lugubrious, amiable cockney types.

Emory Parnell American actor (1892–1979)

Emory Parnell was an American vaudeville performer and actor who appeared in over 250 films in his 36-year career. He was nicknamed "The Big Swede" and was sometimes credited as "Emery" or "Parnel".

Clancy Cooper American actor

Clancy Cooper was an American actor.

Viola Lyel

Viola Lyel was an English actress. In a long stage career she appeared in the West End and on Broadway, for leading directors of the day, including Sir Barry Jackson, and Nigel Playfair. Her roles ranged from Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to melodrama and drawing room comedies.

Frederick Leister English actor (1885-1970)

Frederick Leister, born Frederick Charles Holloway, was an English actor. He began his career in musical comedy, and after serving in the First World War he played character roles in modern West End plays and in classic drama. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1922 and 1961.

John Salew English actor

John Rylett Salew was an English stage film and TV actor. Salew made the transition from stage to films in 1939, and according to Allmovie, "the manpower shortage during WWII enabled the stout, balding Salew to play larger and more important roles than would have been his lot in other circumstances. He usually played suspicious-looking characters, often Germanic in origin." His screen roles included William Shakespeare in the comic fantasy Time Flies (1944), Grimstone in the Gothic melodrama Uncle Silas (1947), and the librarian in the supernatural thriller Night of the Demon (1957). He played Colonel Wentzel in the Adventures of William Tell "The Shrew" episode (1958). John Salew was active into the TV era, playing the sort of character parts that John McGiver played in the US

<i>The Happiest Days of Your Life</i> (play)

The Happiest Days of Your Life is a farce by the English playwright John Dighton. It depicts the complications that ensue when because of a bureaucratic error a girls' school is made to share premises with a boys' school. The title of the play echoes the old saying that schooldays are "the happiest days of our lives".

References

  1. 1 2 Collections: "John Dighton" British Film Institute. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Who's Who in the Theatre, ed. Ian Herbert, Pitman, 1977, p. 552
  3. Collections: "Basil Dighton" The British Museum. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  4. Gaye, pp. 542 and 1532
  5. Vagg, Stephen (29 September 2019). "Ten Stories About Australian Screenwriters You Might Not Know". Filmink.

Sources