Between the 1960s and 90s, with his wonderful talent for spotting the comic potential in almost any situation, my friend Stanley Price, who has died aged 87, was one of a small number of successful British writers for stage, screen and television.
He wrote a stream of extremely funny comedies for the West End stage, beginning with Horizontal Hold (1967), which was made into a television version starring Sheila Hancock. This was followed by The Two of Me (1975), with David and Clive Swift, Moving (1981), with Penelope Keith, which became a TV series in 1985, and Why Me? (1985), with Richard Briers, also followed by a TV series.
The Starving Rich (1972) was adapted into several foreign languages and played in France, Germany (where its long-lasting popularity saw it dubbed “the Mousetrap of Mannheim”), as well as Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain and Israel. Stanley’s film credits included Arabesque (1966), directed by Stanley Donen, Gold (1974) and Shout at the Devil (1976).
Stanley then turned to writing for television. After adaptations of the Noël Coward plays Star Quality, What Mad Pursuit and Bon Voyage in 1985, he wrote Close Relations (1990) which won the best screenplay award at the Rheims international screen festival. Genghis Cohn (1995) won two further awards for best screenplay, first at Rheims and then at the US Cable TV Ace awards.
This was followed by A Royal Scandal (1996), about George IV and Caroline of Brunswick, shown on BBC One. With astonishing versatility, Stanley then wrote three notable works of non-fiction, Somewhere to Hang My Hat (2002), a hilarious account of his Irish-Jewish childhood in Dublin, The Road to Apocalypse: The Extraordinary Journey of Lewis Way (2011), written jointly with his son, the historian Munro Price, and James Joyce and Italo Svevo: The Story of a Friendship (2016).
Stanley was born in Stamford Hill, north London, to Morris (Jim) Price, a GP and his wife, Gertrude (nee White), known as Gyp. After secondary education at the Perse school, Cambridge, and national service in the army, he studied history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he wrote sketches for the Footlights. Shortly after graduation, he married Judy Fenton, an Evening Standard reporter, whom he had met at Cambridge.
The two of them moved in 1957 to New York, where for three years Stanley worked as an entertainment correspondent for Life. This led to some memorable encounters with figures as diverse as Marilyn Monroe and Graham Greene. Many of these he later recounted in articles for the Oldie magazine. In the early 60s, Stanley also published four sharp satirical novels, including Just for the Record (1962).
Both in their home in north London and in France where, for many years, they owned a small house in the Var, the Prices provided great entertainment. Stanley combined being one of the funniest men of his generation with great warmth of heart.
He is survived by Judy, Munro, and his brother, Ashley.
