JOHN BRILEY

(25 June 1925 - 14 December 2019)

The screenplay, theatre and television writer John Briley, who has died aged 94, was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. He first worked in public relations for General Motors and then joined the US Air Force, eventually being posted to Britain at RAF Northolt. It was there that he began his writing career. After gaining a PhD in Elizabethan drama at the University of Birmingham, he left the air force and joined MGM Studios as a staff writer. He wrote the Spike Milligan comedies Invasion Quartet (1961) and Postman’s Knock (1962) and then adapted the John Wyndham sci-fi novel Children of the Damned. This was followed by Hammerhead and Pope Joan with Liv Ullmann. That Lucky Touch starred Roger Moore and Susannah York, while Richard Burton was in The Medusa Touch. Both Eagle’s Wing and Enigma starred Martin Sheen after which came Briley’s most successful screenplay for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which Briley won an Academy Award. He worked with Attenborough again on Cry Freedom, the Steve Biko story. Before that he wrote Marie for Sissy Spacek and adapted the James Clavell novel Tai-Pan. Following Sandino with Kris Kristofferson he wrote Christopher Columbus: The Discovery for Marlon Brando. His last film was Molokai in 1999. He had many unproduced film scripts and also wrote for television and published several novels. John Briley married Dorothy Louise Reichart in 1950 and they have four children.

MICHAEL DARVELL