Douglas Adams - British writer and screenwriter, creator of the fantastic series of hitchhikers across the galaxy. In 2005, the first novel in this series was filmed in Hollywood. Such famous actors as John Malkovich, Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, etc. took part in the film adaptation.
Children and teenagers
Douglas Adams was born in March 1952 in English Cambridge. When he was still very young, his parents divorced. After that, the mother, along with Douglas and his younger sister Susan, settled in the city of Brentwood in Essex.
Already at school, Douglas became interested in literature. He received good grades for his essays and published his stories in a school magazine.
In 1970, after graduation, the young man went on a trip to Turkey by hitchhiking. Douglas had no money, and sometimes he even had to spend the night right in the open field, in the open. There is evidence that it was on this trip that Adams came up with the idea of his most famous novel.
In 1971, Douglas entered St. John's College in Cambridge. Three years later, he graduated from this institution in the status of a bachelor of English literature.
Then Douglas began writing scripts for television shows and sketches. Among other things, he collaborated with the popular comedian group Monty Python. However, at first this activity did not bring prosperity, the guy could not even rent his house and huddled in the same house with his mother.
Radio show "Hitchhiking the Galaxy"
In 1976, Adams got excited about putting his own comedy science fiction show on the radio, but failed to convince the producers to invest in this project. The author could only get support from BBC radio producer Simon Brett.
The production was called by Douglas “Hitchhiking Journey Through the Galaxy”. Her first episode aired on March 8, 1978, at 22:30. Although few believed in this, the radio program aroused great interest among listeners and received good reviews.
One of the features of the production was the use of stereo sound (then it was an innovation). And in general, a significant part of the funds allocated for transmission was spent on sound effects. Adams said that he wanted to ensure that the sound quality was not inferior to the recording quality of the best rock records of those years.
The first novel
Soon, Adams received a proposal from a reputable publisher with a request to convert the radio show into a literary work. Adams responded to this request, and in 1979 the book “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” appeared (literally, this name can be translated into Russian as “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”). In the first three months after the publication of the novel, 250 thousand copies were sold. Some time later, Adams received the prestigious Golden Pan Award, which is awarded to writers for a million books sold. Interestingly, Adams was only 26 years old at that time.
The protagonist of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect, who leave the Earth a moment before the Wogons destroy it - strange green-skinned aliens. Then a certain starship picks up Arthur and Ford, and they begin their fascinating journey through endless space.
The novel really has many advantages: an interesting non-banal plot, vivid characters, subtle English humor
And it is not at all surprising that many fragments from this work were divided into quotes.
But the novel was filmed only twenty-six years after the release, in 2005. Screen adaptation of the Hollywood film company Touchstone Pictures, the budget of the film amounted to $ 50 million.
It is also worth noting that at the beginning of the two thousandth fans of the book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" instituted a special holiday - Towel Day (it is celebrated annually on May 25). Why does the holiday have such a name? The fact is that in the novel almost an entire chapter is devoted to towels and their significance for earthly and intergalactic hitchhikers.
Further creativity
In 1980, the author published the second book of the cycle - "Restaurant at the End of the Universe", which described the further journeys of Arthur and his companions.
The next novel of the cycle - "Life, the Universe and Everything Else" appeared in 1982. Around the same period, Adams' works were included on the New York Times bestseller list. And this was not an ordinary event at all. A British writer in the United States has not sought such recognition since Ian Fleming, the author of stories about MI-6 agent James Bond.
Two years later, in 1984, the fourth book came out of the cycle - "All the best, and thanks for the fish!".
It is also known that in the eighties Adams became very interested in computer technology. At some point, he even accepted an offer from Infocom to develop a PC game based on his "galactic cycle." This game went on sale in 1984 and was later even awarded a special award from Thames TV. This was not the end of Adams’s collaboration with Infocom. A little later he created another exciting game in the interactive fiction genre - "Bureaucracy".
In addition, in the eighties, Adams created several works not related to science fiction. In 1984, he co-authored with producer John Lloyd a humorous dictionary, Meaning of Liff. In 1987, detective Adams "The Holistic Detective Agency Dirk Gently" was published. In 1988, he had a sequel - the novel "Long Tea Party".
Then the book "Meaning of Liff" was continued. Douglas’s new vocabulary was called The Deeper Meaning of Liff. He, by the way, was also co-written - this time with Greg Chapman, one of the members of the Monty Python team.
In 1992, the author published the fifth work of his science fiction cycle. It is called "basically harmless."
Personal Facts
There is information about two women with whom the writer had novels. One of them is the writer Sally Emerson. A romance between them broke out in the early eighties. For Douglas, the woman at that moment left her husband, Peter Stothard, editor of the weekly newspaper The Times (it is interesting that Peter and Adams went to the same school when they were children).
Alas, the lovers did not live together for long. Soon, Sally returned to Stothard.
Then friends introduced the humor writer to lawyer Jane Belson. This relationship was quite stormy. Between Douglas and Jane there were scandals, partings, and even an engagement break.
But in the end, they still became husband and wife - this happened on November 25, 1991. And in the summer of 1994, the couple had a daughter - Polly Jane Adams. Five years later, in 1999, the family moved from the UK to the United States, to the famous, thanks to the eponymous series, California town of Santa Barbara.
