Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey (born October 16, 1908 in Chicago , Illinois , † January 14, 1980 in Kalk Bay , South Africa ) was an American playwright , screenwriter and anthropologist who went through an academic training in anthropology and behavioral research in the 1950s . Two of his most-read works are African Genesis (1961) and The Territorial Imperative , which, alongside Desmond Morris ' The Naked Ape (1967), sparked a public debate in the 1960s as they challenged earlier anthropological assumptions. Arthur C. Clarkes and Stanley Kubrick's 2001 film : A Space Odyssey was just as influenced by Ardrey's ideas as Sam Peckinpah , to whom the American actor Strother Martin gave copies of Ardrey's books.
Life
Robert Ardrey's father was the editor and publisher Robert Leslie Ardrey, his mother Marie was born Haswell. Adrey was a graduate of the University of Chicago in natural and social sciences from 1927 to 1930 , where Thornton Wilder was his mentor . In 1937 and 1938 he held a Guggenheim fellowship . He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and the Royal Society of Literature .
His professional career began with Ardrey writing dramatic plays such as Star Spangled (1936), Casey Jones (1938), Thunder Rock (1939) and Jeb (1946). As early as 1940 he wrote his first screenplay They Knew What They Wanted , which was followed by other screenplays, including The Green Years (1946), based on a novel by AJ Cronin , The Three Musketeers (1948), based on Alexandere Duma 's novel of the same name , Madame Bovary (1949) based on the novel by Gustave Flaubert , and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , 1962. Ardrey was nominated for an Oscar for his 1966 screenplay for the monumental film Khartoum . Two novels are also among his works: World's Beginning (1944) and Brotherhood of Fear (1952).
From the beginning of the 1960s, Ardrey shifted to writing non-fiction books in the field of paleoanthropology . He made the claim that aggressive behavior was an essential feature in human evolution. In his Hunting Hypothesis, Ardrey Raymond popularized Dart's model suggested in his book Adventures with the missing link - hunting as the key to human incarnation - by depicting the ancestors of Homo sapiens as ruthless beings who kill other hominids and would eat.
Ardrey was married to Helen Johnson from 1938 to 1960, with whom he had two sons, Ross and Daniel. Shortly after his divorce in 1960, he married the South African theater actress Berdine Grunewald, who later also illustrated his books. Ardrey, who had lived in Italy for over 15 years , spent the last two years of his life in South Africa.
The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University currently houses the extensive collection of works left by Robert Ardrey.
Filmography (selection)
- 1938: My husband, the Cowboy (The Cowboy and the Lady) unnamed script participation
- 1940: They Knew What They Wanted
- 1942: Thunder Rock (master piece only)
- 1943: Tough Boys - Steep Teeth (A Lady Takes a Chance)
- 1946: The Legacy (The Green Years)
- 1947: Clara Schumann's great love (Song of Love)
- 1948: The Three Musketeers (The Three Musketeers)
- 1949: The Secret Garden (The Secret Garden)
- 1949: Madame Bovary and her lovers (Madame Bovary)
- 1950: The Schumann Story (short film)
- 1955: Love, Death and the Devil (Quentin Durward)
- 1956: The Power and the Prize (The Power and the Price)
- 1957: Leuchtfeuer (German TV film, only original piece, based on Thunder Rock)
- 1959: Hot Frontier (The Wonderful Country)
- 1962: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
- 1966: Khartoum
- 1975: Up from the Ape
- 1985: Theater Night - Thunder Rock (TV series)
Awards / nominations
- Received the Sergel Drama Prize in 1935
- 1937 Guggenheim scholarship
- 1940 Sidney Howard Memorial Prize
- 1961 Theresa Helburn Memorial Prize
- 1963 Funding of the Wilkie Brothers for anthropology studies
- In 1967 , Ardrey received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the British monumental film Khartoum, starring Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier . However, the winners of the trophy were Claude Lelouch and Pierre Uytterhoeven and the film A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme) .
Works (selection)
- Worlds Beginning , 1944
- The Brotherhood of Fear , 1952
- African Genesis - A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man , 1961, German: Adam came from Africa. In search of our ancestors. Vienna, Nymphenburger, 1967, ISBN 3-485-00605-X ; as dtv paperback: 1969.
- The Territorial Imperative - A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations , 1966
- The Social Contract - A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder , 1970
- Aggression and Violence in Man : A Dialogue Between Dr. SB Leakey and Robert Ardrey , 1971
- The Hunting Hypothesis - A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man , 1976
- Plays of Three Decades Thunder Rock / Jeb / Shadow of Heroes
Web links
- Robert Ardrey in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Interview with Robert Ardrey by Roger Ebert on March 20, 1975 (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Florence Waters: Robert Ardrey, the scientist behind 'Straw Dogs' In The Telegraph , November 3, 2011 (English). Retrieved January 26, 2015.
- ↑ Territories: The Life & Works of Robert Ardrey ardreyterritories.tumblr.com (English). Retrieved January 26, 2015.
- ↑ a b c d Guide to the Robert Ardrey Papers 1928–1974. lib.uchicago.edu ( English ). Retrieved January 26, 2015.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Ardrey, Robert |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American novelist and screenwriter |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 16, 1908 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago , Illinois |
DATE OF DEATH | January 14, 1980 |
Place of death | Kalk Bay , South Africa |