Adair, Hazel
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of India-born actor, television producer, scriptwriter and author Hazel Joyce Marriott (1920-2015), in the UK from infancy, perhaps best known for her co-creation with Peter Ling of the British daily television serial Crossroads (1964-1988); she also wrote as by Clare Nicol and Klaus Vogel. Of sf interest is Stranger from Space (1953) with Ronald Marriott (her husband), about a young Alien from Mars who is stranded on Earth and befriends a human boy. This novelizes their own scripts for the BBC children's Television drama Stranger from Space (1951-1953), whose two series extended respectively to 11 and 17 ten-minute episodes. In a 1995 interview with David Pringle, J G Ballard revealed that circa 1969 Adair and David Frost had acquired film rights to Ballard's The Burning World (1964; rev vt The Drought 1965), though despite Adair's enthusiasm this film was never made.
Owing to an incorrect British Library listing this author has been generally conflated with the novelist Hazel Adair whose real name was Hazel Iris Wilson Addis (1900-1990), born Hazel Iris Wilson. [JC/SH/DRL]
Hazel Joyce Marriott, born Hazel Joyce Willett
born Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, India: 9 July 1920
died 22 November 2015
works
- Stranger from Space (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953) with Ronald Marriott [tie to the television series: illus/hb/Antony Hart]
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