Patrick Hamilton
born March 17, 1904, Hassocks, Sussex,
Eng.
died Sept. 23, 1962, Sheringham, Norfolk
English playwright and novelist, notable
for his capture of atmosphere and the
Cockney dialect traditionally associated
with the East End of London.
Hamilton began acting in 1921 and then,
fascinated by theatrical melodrama, took to
writing. He became known with the novel
Craven House (1926). A number of successful
motion pictures were based on works by
Hamilton. His play Rope (first performed
1929; U.S. title Rope’s End) was made into a
film by Alfred Hitchcock under the title
Rope (1948). His play Gaslight was
phenomenally successful; first performed in
London in 1938, it was later produced in New
York City under the title Angel Street. Two
film adaptations were made: the first was
British-made, released in 1940 as Gaslight
and rereleased in the United States in 1952
as Angel Street; and the second, released in
1944 in the United States as Gaslight and in
Great Britain as Murder in Thornton Square,
was directed by George Cukor and starred
Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. From
Hamilton’s novel Hangover Square (1941), the
motion picture of the same title (1945) was
made.
Hamilton also wrote novels portraying the
unpleasantness of the modern city: The
Midnight Bell (1929) and The Plains of
Cement (1934), both included in the volume
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky
(1935).
