Douglas Noel Adams was born in Cambridge on 11 March 1952. "I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn't anything going on on the outside!"
He was educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English Literature. His first published work was a short story in Eagle comic, age 11.
He started writing and peforming seriously at Cambridge, and his early work led on from material written for Footlights 'smokers'. Some of his early work featured on Weekending, and The Burkiss Way. He also collaborated with Graham Chapman (from Monty Python) and produced a Radio 4 christmas pantomime.
He moved from radio to become script editor of Doctor Who, also writing several stories for the Tom Baker incarnation of the Doctor. He would work with Tom again in 1990 for the documentary Hyperland.
Whilst writing for Doctor Who, the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was comissioned, originally appearing as a Radio 4 series in March 1978. Since then it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a television series, records, cassettes and CDs, a computer game and several stage adaptations. It is currently under development as a major motion picture with Disney.
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Biography
The Beginning
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