Alun Owen

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Alun Owen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Alun Davies Owen (24 November 1925 – 6 December 1994) was a Welsh playwright, screenwriter and actor, predominantly in television. However, he is best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night (1964), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Career

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Alun Owen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Owen was born in

A second play, The Rough and Ready Lot, received its stage debut on 1 June 1959 in a production by the 59 Theatre Company at the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith directed by Caspar Wrede and with a cast including Ronald Harwood, June Brown, Jack MacGowran, Patrick Allen, and Alan Dobie.^[3] It was adapted for television by Charles Lawrence and broadcast by the BBC in September 1959 with the original cast, having previously been heard on the Third Programme.^[4]

His next play was his first to be written directly for television. Titled No Trams to Lime Street (1959), the Liverpool-set piece was presented in ABC Weekend TV's Armchair Theatre anthology strand, for which Owen continued to write plays into the 1960s. He also made his feature film scriptwriting debut in 1960, penning The Criminal from a storyline originally by Jimmy Sangster.^{[citation needed]}

In 1961, Owen won both the Guild of Television Producers and Directors' Writer's Award and Scriptwriter's Award.^[5][6] He also won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain 1961 Best Original Teleplay award for The Rose Affair.^[7]

In 1964, when director

Television continued to be his main medium, however, and he concentrated on single plays in anthology series such as BBC2's Theatre 625. An episode of ITV's Saturday Night Theatre, three linked plays under the title "The Male of the Species" (1969).^{[citation needed]}

His 1974 play Lucky was a rare television representation of Britain's new multicultural reality and described a young black man's (Paul Barber), search for identity. He carried on writing for television through the 1970s and 1980s, with his final produced work being an adaptation of R. F. Delderfield's novel Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them for ITV in 1990.^[9]

Death

Owen died in London in 6 December 1994 at the age of 69.^[10][11]

Legacy

A festival was held in Owen's honour from 19–21 October 2006 in Liverpool, arranged by the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society. A lecture in English on Owen and the Liverpool Welsh was delivered by D. Ben Rees, Chairman of the Society, and in Welsh by Arthur Thomas of University of Liverpool on his life and work. These lectures were published in book form in 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Writing credits

Awards and nominations

Sources

• Vahimagi, Tise. Owen, Alun (1925–1994). British Film Institute Screenonline website. Retrieved 7 February 2006.

References