Heathcote Williams

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Heathcote Williams

Heathcote Williams (* 15. November 1941 as John Henley Jasper Heathcote Williams in Helsby , Cheshire , England ; † 1. July 2017 in Oxford , Oxfordshire , England) was a British poet , actor and playwright.

Live and act

Williams first attended Eton College . He began law at Christ Church College of Oxford University , however, to study the university left not finish as he has his first and only novel about the 1964 Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park published. He published his first play The Local Stigmatic in 1966. With Bill Levy, Jim Haynes and Germaine Greer , he founded the newspaper Suck , which campaigned “for sexual liberation”.

His first full-length play, DC / AC , received both the prestigious theater award from the London Evening Standard and the John Whiting Award in 1972 . Williams was able to establish himself as a playwright with a few other equally subversive and successful plays.

From the late 1980s, several poems by Williams appeared, some of epic length. In particular, the continent of whales (original title Whale Nation , 1988) caused a sensation, as the environmentally conscious Williams published a passionate appeal here to abolish the hunt for whales . The rights to the US market for the epic sold for $ 100,000, a sum that also made headlines. Williams' environmental poems were filmed by the BBC , starring Jeremy Irons among others .

In addition to his writing activities, Williams often appeared in supporting roles in film and television productions. He switched freely between artistically more demanding productions such as the film adaptation of the Shakespeare drama Der Sturm by Derek Jarman on the one hand and less demanding productions such as the sequel to Basic Instinct on the other. Among other things, he also played a supporting role in the US sitcom Friends in 1998 . Williams was friends with Al Pacino and appeared as himself in his 1996 documentary Looking For Richard . Pacino, in turn, had taken on a role in Williams' first play The Local Stigmatic at its US premiere and made a short film version of the material in 1990.

Williams had a son with his ex-girlfriend, Polly Samson . He lived in Oxford with his long-time partner Diana Senior, who had been in front of the camera with him in Malatesta in 1970 . The couple had two daughters.

Works

Novel and volumes of poetry

  • The Speakers . Novel. Hutchinson, 1964 (English).
  • Continent of whales . Poem. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt a. M. 1988 (English: Whale Nation .).
  • Sacred Elephant . Poem. 1989 (English).
  • Dolphin . Poem. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt a. M. 1991 (English: Falling for a Dolphin . Translated by Hans J. Becker).
  • Automobile manufacture . Poem. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt a. M. 1992 (English: Autogeddon . Translated by Hans J. Becker).
  • American Porn . Poem. Thin Man Press, London 2017 (English).

Fonts

  • The Windsors - a terribly nice family, Royal Babylon . Translated by Andreas Simon dos Santos. Frankfurt a. M .: Westend 2015. ISBN 978-3-86489-101-4
  • Brexit Boris. From Mayor to Nightmare. Public Reading Rooms 2016. ISBN 978-0-99553520-6

Plays (selection)

  • The Local Stigmatic , premiered in Edinburgh in 1966
  • Alternating Current / Direct Current (AC / DC) , premiered in London in 1970
  • The Immortalist (The Immortalist) , premiered in London in 1977
  • Remember the Truth Dentist , premiered in London in 1974

Filmography (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Luke Harding, Heathcote Williams: radical poet, playwright and actor, dies aged 75 , in: The Guardian , July 2, 2017, accessed July 2, 2017
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Coveney, Heathcote William obituary , in: The Guardian July 2, 2017, accessed July 3, 2017
  3. ↑ Michael Church: Article. In: Independent , August 15, 1995; Retrieved May 13, 2010
  4. ↑ a b See an article in the Independent from September 20, 2008 , accessed on May 13, 2010
  5. ↑ Production info from Autogeddon
  6. ↑ See directory of the Lortel Archives ( Memento of the original from October 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lortel.org
  7. ↑ See article about Samson including their descriptions of the separation

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Williams, Heathcote
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heathcote-Williams, John Henley Jasper (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British poet, actor and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Helsby , Cheshire , England , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 2017
Place of death Oxford , Oxfordshire , England , UK