Douglas Adams (March 11,1952-May,11,2001)

Born: March 11, 1952, Cambridge, United

Kingdom
Died: May 11, 2001, Santa Barbara,
California, United States,Heart Attack
Ocupation:Screenwriter,Novelist,Writer,Auth
or,Playwright,Humorist
Nationality:English
Birth
Douglas Noel Adams was born on March 11,
1952 in Cambridge. His mother, Janet Adams, born Donovan, was a nurse at
Addenbrooke's and his father, Christopher Douglas Adams, was a postgraduate
theology student at Ridley Hall. He later became a teacher of theology, but this was
obviously not his final goal and he became a probation officer and later even a
lecturer on probationary theory and practice.

Family
Douglas parents got divorced when he was five and he moved to Brentwood with
his mother and two years younger sister Sue. In 1962 his father married again and
had another child in 1965, a half-sister to Douglas, who now teaches English in the
Canaries. His mother married Ron Thrift in 1964 and that resulted in Douglas' half-

sister Jane in 1966 and half-brother James in 1968. Jane went on to become a
zoologist. James' wife gave birth to their first born, a girl named Ella, in May 2004.
Ron Thrift died of cancer in 1991.
School
From 1959 until 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School in Essex, at which time
he was still more interested in the field of science than in the arts. The moment he
thought seriously about writing for the first time was at the age of ten, when he got
"ten out of ten" for a composition in Frank Halfords class - reportedly the first and
only time Mr. Halford has ever given "ten out of ten".
By his essay on the revival of religious poetry he won himself an exhibition to
study English at Cambridge. Douglas was eager to go to Cambridge as he wanted
to join Footlights, a comedy revue group there. But in his first term he found them
"aloof and rather pleased with themselves" and he joined CULES (Cambridge
University Light Entertainment Society) instead.
Before and while he studied at Cambridge he decided to hitch-hike to Istanbul and
all over Europe and in order to make the money for his travels he worked as a
chicken-shed cleaner, barn builder and hospital porter (in the X-ray department of
Yeovil General Hospital; he was not unfamiliar with this kind of job as he had
worked in a mental hospital while he was still at school).