Len Deighton

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Len Deighton (left) teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg on the set of The IPCRESS File.[1]
Len Deighton (left) teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg on the set of The IPCRESS File.[1]

Leonard Cyril Deighton (born February 18, 1929, Marylebone, London) is a British historian, cookery expert and novelist, perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a famous film starring Michael Caine.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Deighton's interest in spy stories may have been partially inspired by the arrest of Anna Wolkoff, which he witnessed as an 11-year-old boy. Wolkoff was a British citizen of Russian descent who was a Nazi spy. She was detained on May 20, 1940, and charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for attempting to pass secret documents to the Nazis.

In 1949 Deighton attended St Martin's School of Art in London, and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1955. While he was at the RCA he became a "lifelong friend"[1] of fellow designer Raymond Hawkey, who later designed the covers for his books. Deighton then worked as an airline steward with BOAC. Before he began his writing career he worked as an illustrator in New York and, in 1960, as an art director in a London advertising agency. He has since used his drawing skills to illustrate a number of his own military history books.

[edit] Works

[edit] Novels

Several of his novels have been adapted as films. His first four novels featured an anonymous anti-hero, named "Harry Palmer" in the films, and portrayed by Michael Caine. The first trilogy of his Bernard Samson novel series was made into a 12-part television series by Granada Television in 1988, shown only once, and withdrawn on instructions from Mr Deighton.[citation needed] He wrote the screenplay and was an uncredited producer [2] for the 1969 film of the play Oh! What a Lovely War. His 1970 World War II historical novel Bomber about an RAF Bomber Command raid over Germany often is considered his masterpiece.

[edit] Cookery books

Deighton also published a series of cookery books and wrote and drew a weekly strip cartoon-style illustrated cooking guide in London's The Observer newspaper – Len Deighton's Cookstrip. At least one of the strips is pinned up in Deighton's spy hero's kitchen in the 1965 film of his novel The IPCRESS File.[2]

To exploit the success of Deighton's first four "Harry Palmer" novels, he wrote Len Deighton's London Dossier (1967), a guide book to Swinging Sixties London with a "secret agent" theme — contributions from other writers are described as "surveillance reports".

[edit] History books

Deighton's 1977 "The Battle of Britain" was said by Albert Speer (once Hitler's Minister of Armaments) to be "an excellent, most thorough examination. I read page after page with fascination". The piece was furnished with a comment by A.J.P. Taylor simply saying: "Brilliant analysis...".

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dempsey, Mike. Immaculate conception. Design Week. Retrieved on 2007-12-06.
  2. ^ Oh! What a lovely war (1969) - Full cast and crew. IMDB. Retrieved on 2006-12-08.


v • d • e
Works by Len Deighton
"Unnamed hero" novels:
The IPCRESS File (1962) · Horse Under Water (1963) · Funeral in Berlin (1964) · Billion-Dollar Brain (1966) · An Expensive Place to Die (1967) · Spy Story (1972) · Yesterday's Spy (1975) · Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy (1976)
Bernard Samson novels:
Berlin Game (1983) · Mexico Set (1984) · London Match (1985) · Winter (1987) · Spy Hook (1988) · Spy Line (1989) · Spy Sinker (1990) · Faith (1994) · Hope (1995) · Charity (1996)
Other novels:
Only When I Larf (1968) · Bomber (1970) · Close-Up (1972) · SS-GB (1978) · XPD (1981) · Goodbye, Mickey Mouse (1982) · MAMista (1991) · City of Gold (1992) · Violent Ward, (1993)
Short story collections:
Declarations of War (1971) · The Verdict of Us (2006)
Non-fiction:
Où Est le Garlic (1965) · Len Deighton's Action Cookbook (1965) · Len Deighton's London Dossier (1967) · Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain (1977) · Airshipwreck (1978) · Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk (1979) · Battle of Britain (1980) · Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II (1993)