Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton was a British writer born into a troubled family in 1904, with a lineage of artistic talent that included authors and an actress. His early life was marked by dysfunction, as his father's alcoholism and unfaithfulness created a challenging home environment, compounded by his mother's possessiveness and similar struggles with alcohol. After graduating from Westminster School in 1919, Hamilton initially pursued a career in theater before establishing himself as a writer by 1929. Despite achieving some literary success, including the notable works "The Midnight Bell" and "Hanover Square," he often faced financial hardships and personal difficulties, particularly in his relationships with women.
Hamilton's life took a tragic turn in 1932 when a car accident left him severely injured and disfigured, which may have intensified his struggles with alcoholism. He is best known for his plays, such as "Rope" and "Gaslight," which have gained critical acclaim and have been adapted for film. His prose fiction, while often overlooked, provides a vivid portrayal of the darker aspects of urban life in early 20th-century Britain. Hamilton's literary contributions reflect his personal experiences and observations of societal dysfunction, culminating in a legacy that continues to be explored posthumously. He passed away in 1962 due to cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure.
On this Page
Patrick Hamilton
Playwright
- Born: March 17, 1904
- Birthplace: Hassocks, Sussex, England
- Died: September 23, 1962
- Place of death: Sheringham, Norfolk, England
Biography
Patrick Hamilton was born to an artistic but severely dysfunctional family. Both of Patrick Hamilton’s parents and his brother published popular novels; his sister became an actress. His father, a barrister, alcoholic, and adulterer, was often absent from home as he spent his way through an inheritance. The boy’s mother, his father’s second wife, was also alcoholic and was overly possessive of her three children, who loved her as they feared their father. Patrick Hamilton graduated from the Westminster School in 1919.
Hamilton first worked in the theater, and then became a stenographer, having learned the skill in a correspondence course. In 1929, his writing became a significant source of income. Despite his continuing success as a writer, Patrick Hamilton was often financially pressed. His relationships with women were as difficult as his parents’ relationships had been. Easily infatuated with beautiful women, in the 1920’s he became obsessed with Lily Connolly, a prostitute. In 1930, he married Lois Martin, whom he subsequently divorced. In 1932, Patrick Hamilton was hit by a car, seriously injured, and facially disfigured. Sensitivity about his difficult relations with women and his disfigurement may have exacerbated his problems with alcohol.
Patrick Hamilton led a lonely, insecure, unhappy life, and he recreated on the page the world of cheap hotels and boarding houses, bars, and dance halls that he inhabited. He had an excellent ear for dialogue, which convincingly characterizes the people of this often depressing, sometimes comic, sometimes horrifying world just beyond the fringe of comfortable society. The first of Patrick Hamilton’s real fictional successes, The Midnight Bell (1929), drew on his attachment to Lily Connolly. Two more novels were published with it in 1935 as Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy, presenting what Patrick Hamilton called “the weird teeming aquarium of the metropolis.”
In 1941, Patrick Hamilton published Hanover Square, a portrait of sociological and psychological dysfunction and perhaps his most successful novel. He also wrote two very successful plays. Rope (1929) presents a thrill killing by two college students. (Patrick Hamilton denied any connection to the strikingly similar 1925 Richard Leopold and Nathan Loeb murder of Bobby Franks.) Rope makes much of the macabre device of having the victim’s corpse hidden in a trunk remaining on center stage throughout the play. Patrick Hamilton adapted Rope in 1932 as a radio drama, and in 1948 Alfred Hitchcock made the play into a movie unfortunately flawed by its experimental technique.
In 1938, Patrick Hamilton wrote Gaslight, Richmond, a psychological thriller which enjoyed great stage success and was made into films on both sides of the Atlantic. The 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production was directed by George Cukor and starred Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, who won an Academy Award in the film. Patrick Hamilton regarded his plays as mere entertainments, but they have been well received critically and commercially. He was more serious about his prose fiction, which has often been ignored, perhaps unfairly. In 1962, Patrick Hamilton died of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure.