Naughton, Bill

▪ British playwright

in full  William John Francis Naughton 

born June 12, 1910, Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, Ire.

died Jan. 9, 1992, Ballasalla, Isle of Man

      Irish-born British playwright who is best remembered for a series of working-class comedies he wrote in the 1960s, most notably Alfie (1963; filmed 1966), an episodic, unsentimental tale of an egocentric Cockney womanizer.

      When Naughton was a child, his family moved from Ireland to Bolton, Lancashire, England, where he later worked as a weaver, truck driver, and coal bagger. A Roof over Your Head (1945), a semiautobiographical study of life in northern England in the 1920s, was followed by several moderately successful novels and short-story collections. In the 1950s he moved to London to write for the humour magazine Lilliput and for radio and television.

      Naughton drew acclaim for his first three plays: Alfie (which was based on his 1962 radio play Alfie Elkins and His Little Life), All in Good Time (1963; filmed as The Family Way, 1966), and Spring and Port Wine (1967; a revision of his earlier play My Flesh, My Blood; also published as Keep It in the Family; filmed 1970).

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