Southern, Terry
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Film.
(1924-1995) US journalist, screenwriter and author, of greatest sf interest for his brief but seminal involvement (16 November-28 December 1962) in the transformation of Peter George's original novel, Two Hours to Doom (1958) as by Peter Bryant, into the black Satire Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) directed (and in part written) by Stanley Kubrick. He was also involved in scripting Barbarella (1968) directed by Roger Vadim. None of his fiction is sf, though Candy (1958) with Mason Hoffenberg, writing together as by Maxwell Kenton, generates a fabulistic aura through its marked resemblance to Voltaire's Candide (1759); and The Magic Christian (1959) climaxes on the eponymous Ship of Fools, a cruise liner purchased by the protagonist of the tale, who then inflicts behavioural experiments on its passengers. The considerably different black-comedy film adaptation is The Magic Christian (1969) directed by Joseph McGrath. [JC]
Terry Marion Southern Jr
born Alvarado, Texas: 1 May 1924
died New York: 29 October 1995
works (selected)
- Candy (Paris: Olympia Press, 1958) with Mason Hoffenberg, writing together as by Maxwell Kenton [pb/nonpictorial]
- The Magic Christian (London: Andre Deutsch, 1959) [hb/Nicolas Bentley]
- Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (London: Corgi Books, 1963) with Peter George and Stanley Kubrick [tie: novelizing the film Dr. Strangelove: George is given sole credit: pb/]
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