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BIOGRAPHY
Unlike the pound or Watney's Ale, British humor travels the Atlantic
well. American audiences have long been fans of the English comic
muses from Henry Fielding to Monty Python. Latest in this parade of
writers to reach the colonies is Douglas Adams, whose fourth volume in
the "Hitchhiker Trilogy" will soon reach bookstores, to the delight of
his countless fans.
The son of a post-graduate theology student and a nurse, Douglas Noel
Adams was born i n Cambridge, England, in 1952. He was schooled at
Brentwood in Essex, then entered St. John's College at Cambridge
University in 1970. Cambridge during the '70s was a fertile bed of
comic genuis that spawned such stars as Dudley Moore, John Cleese, Peter
Cook and Graham Chapman.
Adam's antic notions fit the school's extracurricular style, and he soon
joined The Footlights Club, famous for its comic and satirical
productions. He began collaborating with many of the writers who would
later create Th e Monty Python Show and Not The Nine O'Clock News.
It was on a semester break at Cambridge that the idea for his first
major effort came to him. He had been traveling around the continent,
using The Hitchhiker's Guide To Europe as a reference. It was a starry
night in Innsbruck, and Adams lay on his back, slightly drunk,
contemplating the universe. The thought came to him that someone should
write The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, combining the Gee- Whiz! fun
of science fiction with timely soci al satire. It took six years for
the idea to come to fruition, but it has provided his passport to
considerable fame and modest fortune.
Graduating Cambridge in 1974, Adams "went down" to London and tried his
hand at TV writing, penning a number of episodes for the Dr. Who series,
which is aired in this country on PBS. Two years later, he was broke
and accepted a job as bodyguard for a royal Arabian family. His job, he
says, was to stand outside the door, bow occasionally, and run if anyone
showe d up with a hand grenade.
During his off-hours, he began writing The Hitchhiker's Guide. His
Innsbruck fantasy first took form as a radio serial, which he sold to
the BBC. The show began to build a cult following--people who, it
seemed, couldn't wait to start their own adventures travelling around
the galaxy.
The series became so popular in Britain, that it was aired four times,
and ultimately sparked, a television series, two records, a stage show
and an interactive fiction game.
Americans discovered The Hitchhiker's Guide during the 1980's and the
radio version has been broadcast several times on National Public Radio
member stations, PBS has aired the television version, and the books
have sold in the hundreds of thousands.
Now that the book has been optioned for a film, Adams has become a
modern version of Renaissance Man, though his view of man's foibles
places his somewhere between Swift and Dickens.
In addition to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Adams has now
completed three mo re volumes in the "trilogy:" The Restaurant At The
End Of The Universe; Life, The Universe And Everything, and So Long, And
Thanks For All The Fish.
He recently co-authored a book with British satirist John Lloyd called
The Meaning Of Liff (sic). It's a small dictionary of place names
adapted to describe situations and experiences which have other name
designation. Thus, "epping" describes the little futile finger
movements you use to get a barman's attention, and "Kalami" is the
ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road maps properly.
After seven months in Los Angeles, California, working on the screenplay
for The Hitchhiker's Guide, Adams has given up on America and now
resides once more in England, where he practices the first rule of
galactic hitchhiking: "Don't Panic."
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