Douglas-Home, William

▪ British playwright

born June 3, 1912, Edinburgh, Scot.

died Sept. 28, 1992, Kilmeston, Hampshire, Eng.

      British playwright who, in four decades, created more than 40 plays, notably light comedies that often were produced on Broadway and made into motion pictures.

      Douglas-Home was educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford, and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked as an actor in London before focusing on writing as a career. Now Barabbas (1947), his first play to show in London's West End, was based on his prison experiences during World War II after he was court-martialed for refusing to take part in an attack that killed more than 2,000 civilians in the French port of Le Havre. His three unsuccessful candidacies for Parliament and the political career of his brother, Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home (later Lord Home), inspired such plays as The Chiltern Hundreds (1947) and The Reluctant Peer (1964). Other successes included The Reluctant Debutante (1955), The Secretary Bird (1968), The Jockey Club Stakes (1970), Lloyd George Knew My Father (1972), The Kingfisher (1977), and Portraits (1987). His three volumes of autobiography were Half Term Report (1954), Mr. Home Pronounced Hume (1979), and Old Men Remember (1991).

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