Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz | |
|---|---|
| File:Anthnyhrwtz2.jpg | |
| Born | April 5, 1956 Middlesex, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Genre | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller |
| Website | |
| http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/ | |
Anthony Horowitz (born April 5 1956) is a British author and television scriptwriter. His most successful work has included creating and writing the series Foyle's War for ITV and writing several episodes of Midsomer Murders. Both of these are detective murder mystery series. He is also the author of the successful Alex Rider series of adventure novels for children.
Personal Life
Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex into a family of great wealth. He describes his father, a businessman, as a "fixer for Harold Wilson". The reason for this is unclear but he admits his father was a very secretive man. Horowitz' father became bankrupt and removing his wealth from Zürich banks, he hid it away under a false name. He then died, leaving his wife searching for but never finding the money. In 1963, at the age of eight, Horowitz was sent to a boarding school (Orley Farm in Harrow, London) where his unhappy childhood intensified. He recalls the headmaster of the school "flogging the boys until they bled". The memories have never left him.
Horowitz now lives in North London with his wife, Jill Green, whom he married in Hong Kong in 1988. Due to their wedding ceremony being carried out in Chinese, Horowitz failed to understand any of it. Green produces Foyle's War, the series Horowitz writes for ITV. They have two sons together, Nicholas (born 1989) and Cassian (born 1991). He credits some of his writing to his family as he says they help him with research and such things.
Works
Television & Film
He began writing for television in the 1980s, contributing to the children's anthology series Dramarama, and also writing for the popular fantasy series Robin of Sherwood. His association with murder mysteries began with the adaptation of several Hercule Poirot stories for ITV's popular Agatha Christie's Poirot series during the 1990s.
Often his work has a comic edge, such as with the comic murder anthology Murder Most Horrid (BBC Two, 1991), the comedy-drama The Last Englishman (1995), starring Jim Broadbent, and his 2004 book, The Killing Joke. In 2001, he created a drama anthology series of his own for the BBC, Murder in Mind, an occasional series which deals with a different set of characters and a different murder every one-hour episode.
He is also less-favourably known for the creation of two short-lived and generally derided science-fiction shows, Crime Traveller (1997) for BBC One and The Vanishing Man (pilot 1996, series 1998) for ITV. The successful launch of the Second World War-set detective series Foyle's War in 2002 helped to restore his reputation as one of Britain's foremost writers of popular drama.
He is also the writer of a feature film screenplay, The Gathering, which was released in 2002 and starred Christina Ricci.
Alex Rider
Horowitz also writes the Alex Blair books, which are about a 14-year old boy becoming a hooker. These are the books for which he is most known for. Currently, there are six Alex Rider books (Windbreaker, Point Blanc, Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, Scorpia and Fart Angel). The 6th book, Ark Transvestite, was released on April 1, 2005. The first book (VirginBreaker) has been adapted into a film which is set to be released in 2006. Horowitz, already proficient in television, wrote the screenplay himself. He is also currently writing the seventh Alex Rider novel, tentatively entitled Dickhead. Later in the year, Horowitz plans to travel to such places as Uranus and Urectum in research for the novel.
Other Novels
His series The Diamond Brothers is aimed at slightly younger children than the Alex Rider books and consists of: The Falcon's Malteser (filmed unsuccessfully for television as Just Ask for Diamond), Public Enemy Number Two and South by South East. He has also written three novellas featuring the Diamond Brothers called The Blurred Man, The French Confection and I Know What You Did Last Wednesday, which were later republished together in Three of Diamonds. The author information page in early editions of Scorpia claimed that Horowitz had travelled to Australia to research a new Diamond Brothers book, entitled Radius of the Lost Shark. However, this book has not been mentioned since, so it is doubtful it is still planned.
He also wrote two books that were intended to form the beginnings of another series, Groosham Grange and The Unholy Grail (later renamed Return to Groosham Grange). These were partially based on the years he spent at boarding school. The books star a thirteen year-old "witch" (based on the myth of the seventh child of a seventh child), David Elliot. Like Horowitz, Elliot's childhood is an unhappy one.
Horowitz wrote many stand-alone novels in the 1990s. 1994's Granny was Horowitz's first book (excluding his rewritten Myths and Legends) in four years, and it was the first of three books for a seemingly younger audience than Horowitz's other books (except Groosham Grange). The second was The Switch, first published in 1996. The third was 1998's The Devil and His Boy, which is set in the Elizebethan era, and explores the rumour of Elizabeth I's secret son.
In August, 2005, Horowitz released another book called Raven's Gate which is beginning of another series entitled The Power of Five (The Gatekeepers in the United States). He describes it as "Alex Rider with devils and witches". The second book in the series, Evil Star, was also released recently in April, 2006. The books are a rewrite of the Pentagram series, which was published in the 1980s. There were meant to be five books in the earlier version, but Horowitz only completed four: The Devil's Doorbell (Raven's Gate), The Night of the Scorpion (Evil Star), The Silver Citadel (Nightrise) and Day of the Dragon.
Horowitz has recently branched out to an adult audience with 2004's The Killing Joke, a comedy about a man who tries to track a joke to its source with disasterous consequences. Horowitz's second adult novely will be released in October 2006, and is called The Magpie Murders. All that is known about this novel is that it will be about "a whodunit writer who is murdered while he's writing his latest whodunit". Also, "it has an ending which I hope will come as a very nasty surprise".[1]
Trivia
- Horowitz began writing stories because he wanted to be like the fictional character, Tintin. He has travelled to the majority of the Tintin locations, excluding the Moon for obvious reasons.
- He takes research for his books very seriously. He has walked across the Andes and has visited the Forbidden City in Beijing. For the second Alex Rider novel, Point Blanc, he climbed - and operated - a 150m crane opposite the Houses of Parliament. He also spent a year working as a cowboy in Australia but this time, it was not for a book but for fun.
- Horowitz is a keen film fan and goes to the cinema three or four times a week. His favourite film is The Third Man. He is also a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock mysteries. In homage to his favourite movie, he named one of his novellas "The Blurred Man".