Francis Henry Durbridge (25 November 1912 - April 11, 1998) was a British playwright and author born in Hull. November 25 is the 329th (in leap years the 330th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday. ... April 11 is the 101st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (102nd in leap years). ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Hull or Kingston upon Hull is a British city situated on the north bank of the Humber estuary. ...

Biography

Educated at Bradford Grammar School in Yorkshire, he was encouraged to write by his English teacher, and continued to do so whilst studying English at Birmingham University. After graduating in 1933, he worked for a short time as a stockbroker's clerk, before selling a radio play to the BBC at the age of 21. Bradford is the major settlement in the City of Bradford Metropolitan District, in the county of West Yorkshire in the north of England. ... The White Yorkshire rose. ... The University of Birmingham is the oldest of three universities in the English city of Birmingham. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ...

In 1939, he created the character Paul Temple, a crime novelist and detective. With his wife Steve, a Fleet Street journalist, Temple solved numerous crimes amongst the glamorous world of the leisured middle-classes on radio and, from 1969 until 1971, in a 64-part big-budget television series. 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Paul Temple is a fictional writer of crime-novels and private-detective invented by English author Francis Durbridge (1912-1998). ... For the television series tentatively titled Fleet Street, see Boston Legal. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ...

He went on to forge a successful career as a writer for the stage, with seven plays, the last of which, Sweet Revenge, was written in 1991. 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

He married Norah Lawley, with whom he had two sons, in 1940. He died at his home in Barnes, London in 1998. 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Barnes is a place in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. ... Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

European Radio Serial

The first series on radio was called "Send for Paul Temple" - this was in 1938; Hugh Morton played Paul and Steve was Bernadette Hodgson. Marjorie Westbury took over the part in the 2nd series "Paul Temple & The Front Page Men" also in 1938. The signature tune was Scheherazade, later changed to Coronation Scot played by the Queens Hall Light Orchestra. In 1939 Carl Bernard took over the part of Paul. After the war Barry Morse played Paul - 1945. Howard Marion Crawford played Paul - 1946, and in a later 1946 series the part was played by Kim Peacock who played Paul in all further series until 1951. Peter Coke took over the part in the 1954 series.

Throughout the 1960s, German radio adapted twelve Paul Temple novels as serials. Each part ending with a cliffhanger, making them "Strassenfeger" ("street-clearers"), which were so popular as to leave the streets deserted. The actors were of national renown, with Paul Temple played by Luxembourg-born Rene Deltgen, and supported by Gustav Knuth, Paul Klinger and others. All of these serials, despite their age, are available on CD as audio-books. A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in which a movie or novel contains an abrupt ending, often leaving the main characters in a precarious or difficult situation (The phrase comes from the example of a story ending with a main character hanging precariously from the edge of...

In 1967, The European Broadcasting Union invited Durbridge to write an original radio serial for the international market - La Boutique - which was broadcast in more than fifteen countries, and in a variety of languages. 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), known in French as LUnion Européenne de Radio-Télévision (UER), and unrelated to the European Union, was formed February 12, 1950 by 23 broadcasting organizations from Europe and the Mediterranean at a conference in the coastal resort of Torquay in Devon...

Television series

In the mid-1960s, several mini-series based on Paul Temple novels appeared on TV in Europe, especially in England and Germany.

The later 64 part 1969 - 1971 television series is notable for the fact that the first 52 parts comprised the very first international television co-production. It was made by the BBC with the German station ZDF. Paul Temple was played by English actor Francis Matthews (Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Captain Scarlet), with Ros Drinkwater as Steve. Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), loosely translated to Second German Television Service, is a public service German language television network based in Mainz. ... Francis Matthews is a British film, TV and stage actor born 10 September 1927. ... Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to in shorthand as simply Captain Scarlet, is a science fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Television company of Sylvia and Gerry Anderson and Lew Grade and first shown in Britain (originally on ATV Midlands, but later the whole of the...

Besides the serials several mini-series were made in Europe after Durbridge's novels, running in England, the Netherlands and Germany, featuring other characters including "Tim Frazer" or "Harry Brent" and having nearly 80% of all TV-viewers watching them (mostly due to the fact that, at that time, most countries in Europe only had one TV station each). National uproar in Germany occurred in 1962 when a comedian, Wolfgang Neuss, revealed in a newspaper who was to be the murderer in the last part of the mini-series "Das Halstuch" (The Scarf).

Novels

Several Paul Temple novels were written by Durbridge in collaboration with John Thewes, Douglas Rutherford and Charles Hatten. Those written with Rutherford were even published under the name of "Paul Temple", making the fictional writer into a "real" one.

Radio plays/Radio series

Paul Temple

• Send for Paul Temple (1938)
• Paul Temple And The Front Page Men (1938)
• News of Paul Temple (1939)
• Paul Temple Intervenes (1942)
• Send for Paul Temple Again (1945)
• A Case for Paul Temple (1946)
• Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair (1946)
• Paul Temple and Steve (1947)
• Mr. and Mrs. Paul Temple (1947)
• Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery (1947)
• Paul Temple and the Curzon Case (1948)
• Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (1949)
• Paul Temple and the Van Dyke Affair (1950)
• Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery (1951)
• Paul Temple and Steve Again (1953)
• Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case (1954)
• Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (1955) (nyinspelning)
• Paul Temple and the Lawrence Affair (1956)
• Paul Temple and the Spencer Affair (1957)
• Paul Temple and the Van Dyke Affair (1959) (nyinspelning)
• Paul Temple and the Conrad Case (1959)
• Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case (1959) (nyinspelning)
• Paul Temple and the Margot Mystery (1961)
• Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery (1963) (nyinspelning)
• Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery (1965)
• Paul Temple and the Alex Affair (1968) (nyinspelning av Send For Paul Temple)

Other radio plays/radio series

• Persuasion (1933)
• Information Received (1938)
• And Anthony Sherwood Laughed (1940)
• Were Strangers (1941)
• Mr. Harrington Died Tomorrow (1942)
• The Essential Heart (1943)
• Frewell Leicester Square (1943)
• Over My Dead Body (1946)
• John Washington Esquire (1949)
• What Do You Think? (1962)
• La Boutique (1967)

Novels

Paul Temple novels

• Send for Paul Temple (1938)
• Paul Temple and the Front Page Men (with Charles Hatton) (1939)
• News of Paul Temple (1940)
• Paul Temple Intervenes (1944)
• Send for Paul Temple Again! (1948)
• East of Algiers (with Douglas Rutherford) (1959)
• Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair (1970)
• Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery (1970)
• The Geneva Mystery (1971)
• The Curzon Case (1971)
• Paul Temple and the Margo Mystery (1986)
• Paul Temple and the Madison Case (1988)
• Paul Temple and the Conrad Case (1989)

Tim Frazer novels

• The World of Tim Frazer (1962)
• Tim Frazer Again (1964)
• Tim Frazer Gets the Message (1978)

Other Novels

• Back Room Girl (1950)
• Beware of Johnny Washington (1951)
• Design for Murder (1951)
• The Tyler Mystery (with Douglas Rutherford) (1957)
• The Other Man (1958)
• A Time of Day (1959)
• The Scarf (1960)
• Portrait of Alison (1962)
• My Friend Charles (1963)
• Another Woman's Shoes (1965)
• The Desperate People (1966)
• Dead to the World (967)
• My Wife Melissa (1967)
• The Pig-Tail Murder (1969)
• A Man Called Harry Brent (1970)
• Bat out of Hell (1972)
• A Game of Murder (1975)
• The Passenger (1977)
• Breakaway (1981)
• The Doll (1982)
• House Guest (1982)
• Deadly Nightcap (1986)
• A Touch of Danger (1989)
• The Small Hours (1992)
• Sweet Revenge (1994)
• Fatal Encounter (2002)

TV series

• The Broken Horseshoe (1952)
• Operation Dilomat (1952)
• The Teckman Biography (1953-54)
• The Teckman Mystery (1954)
• Portrait Of Alison (1955)
• My Friend Charles (1956)
• The Other Man (1956)
• A Time Of Day (1957)
• The Vicious Circle (1957)
• The Scarf (1959)
• The World Of Tim Frazer (1960-61)
• The Desperate People (1963)
• Melissa (1964)
• A Man Called Harry Brent (1965)
• Bat Out Of Hell (1966)
• Paul Temple (12 episodes) (1968-69)
• Paul Temple (52 episodes) (1969-71)
• The Passenger (1971)
• The Doll (1975)
• Breakaway (1980)

Plays

• Suddenly At Home (1971)
• The Gentle Hook (1974)
• House Guest (1976)
• Murder With Love (1976)
• Deadly Nightcap (1983)
• A Touch Of Danger (1987)
• The Small Hours (1991)
• Sweet Revenge (1993)

Films

• 1946 Send for Paul Temple (with Anthony Hulme)
• 1948 Calling Paul Temple (with John Bentley)
• 1950 Paul Temple's Triumph (with John Bentley)
• 1952 Paul Temple Returns (with John Bentley)

External links

• Francis Durbridge at IMDb