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Brian Clemens
Brian Horace Clemens OBE (30 July 1931 – 10 January 2015) was an English screenwriter and television producer. He worked on the espionage television series The Avengers, and created The New Avengers and The Professionals.
Clemens was born in Croydon, Surrey, to Suzanna (née O'Grady) and Albert, an engineer, who worked in music halls. Clemens said he was related to Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and reflected this in the naming of his two sons, Samuel Joshua Twain Clemens and George Langhorne Clemens. He left school aged 14.
Following national service in the British Army at Aldershot, where he was a weapons training instructor in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Clemens wanted to be a journalist but decided he did not have any qualifications. He was offered a job with a private detective agency, but this involved taking a training course in the city of Leeds and, as he had been away from home in London for two years, he decided he did not want to go away again. Instead, he worked his way up from messenger boy at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. While he was a copywriter there, he had a thriller screenplay accepted and shot by BBC TV, Valid for Single Journey Only (1955). This brought him to the attention of the Danziger brothers, independent, low-budget movie producers.
From the mid-1950s onward Clemens was a staff writer for the Danzigers, churning out dozens of quickie scripts for assembly line 'B' movies and half-hour television series such as Mark Saber (ITV, 1957–1959; also known as Saber of London), White Hunter (ITV, 1958–1960), Man from Interpol (ITV, 1960–1961), and Richard The Lionheart (ITV, 1961–1965).
Clemens wrote for ITC Entertainment's thriller series The Invisible Man (ITV, 1958–1959), Sir Francis Drake (ITV, 1961–1962), and Danger Man (ITV, 1960–1961; 1964–1967; also known as Secret Agent), for which he had written the pilot. His output was so prolific during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s that he frequently used the pseudonym Tony O'Grady.
Clemens wrote the second episode for The Avengers (ITV, 1961–1969) in 1961 but not the pilot, as is often claimed. He also wrote one other episode ("One for the Mortuary") for the first season and multiple episodes of the third season. Beginning in the fourth season, Clemens became the script editor, associate producer and main scriptwriter for the series. Due to his rapid working rate and productivity, Clemens would frequently perform extensive rewrites of other writers' scripts to ensure the show consistently matched his creative sensibilities; fellow Avengers writer Roger Marshall later noted that "his influence pervades almost every scene" of the show's later seasons.
Clemens cast Diana Rigg to replace departing star Honor Blackman in The Avengers. He was later quoted as saying, "I didn't do Diana a very good service. It made her an international star but I think I could have done more for her as far as the script was concerned. She was rather a stooge to Patrick Macnee's Steed." He did not choose Linda Thorson to replace Rigg.
According to the British Film Institute's profile of him, Clemens "brought this spirit of burlesque to his other series – most notably with Adam Adamant Lives! (BBC, 1966–1967), but also with The Baron (ITV, 1966–1967), The Persuaders! (ITV, 1971–1972), The Protectors (ITV, 1972–1974), and The Adventurer (ITV, 1972–1974) – resoundingly poking fun both at the genre they were imitating and the sources of their inspiration."
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Brian Clemens
Brian Horace Clemens OBE (30 July 1931 – 10 January 2015) was an English screenwriter and television producer. He worked on the espionage television series The Avengers, and created The New Avengers and The Professionals.
Clemens was born in Croydon, Surrey, to Suzanna (née O'Grady) and Albert, an engineer, who worked in music halls. Clemens said he was related to Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and reflected this in the naming of his two sons, Samuel Joshua Twain Clemens and George Langhorne Clemens. He left school aged 14.
Following national service in the British Army at Aldershot, where he was a weapons training instructor in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Clemens wanted to be a journalist but decided he did not have any qualifications. He was offered a job with a private detective agency, but this involved taking a training course in the city of Leeds and, as he had been away from home in London for two years, he decided he did not want to go away again. Instead, he worked his way up from messenger boy at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. While he was a copywriter there, he had a thriller screenplay accepted and shot by BBC TV, Valid for Single Journey Only (1955). This brought him to the attention of the Danziger brothers, independent, low-budget movie producers.
From the mid-1950s onward Clemens was a staff writer for the Danzigers, churning out dozens of quickie scripts for assembly line 'B' movies and half-hour television series such as Mark Saber (ITV, 1957–1959; also known as Saber of London), White Hunter (ITV, 1958–1960), Man from Interpol (ITV, 1960–1961), and Richard The Lionheart (ITV, 1961–1965).
Clemens wrote for ITC Entertainment's thriller series The Invisible Man (ITV, 1958–1959), Sir Francis Drake (ITV, 1961–1962), and Danger Man (ITV, 1960–1961; 1964–1967; also known as Secret Agent), for which he had written the pilot. His output was so prolific during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s that he frequently used the pseudonym Tony O'Grady.
Clemens wrote the second episode for The Avengers (ITV, 1961–1969) in 1961 but not the pilot, as is often claimed. He also wrote one other episode ("One for the Mortuary") for the first season and multiple episodes of the third season. Beginning in the fourth season, Clemens became the script editor, associate producer and main scriptwriter for the series. Due to his rapid working rate and productivity, Clemens would frequently perform extensive rewrites of other writers' scripts to ensure the show consistently matched his creative sensibilities; fellow Avengers writer Roger Marshall later noted that "his influence pervades almost every scene" of the show's later seasons.
Clemens cast Diana Rigg to replace departing star Honor Blackman in The Avengers. He was later quoted as saying, "I didn't do Diana a very good service. It made her an international star but I think I could have done more for her as far as the script was concerned. She was rather a stooge to Patrick Macnee's Steed." He did not choose Linda Thorson to replace Rigg.
According to the British Film Institute's profile of him, Clemens "brought this spirit of burlesque to his other series – most notably with Adam Adamant Lives! (BBC, 1966–1967), but also with The Baron (ITV, 1966–1967), The Persuaders! (ITV, 1971–1972), The Protectors (ITV, 1972–1974), and The Adventurer (ITV, 1972–1974) – resoundingly poking fun both at the genre they were imitating and the sources of their inspiration."