Christopher Hampton

File:2025.03.29. Christopher Hampton and Agnieszka Holland Photo Mariusz Kubik 1.JPG

With Agnieszka Holland with whom he made the film Total Eclipse (1995) - Warsaw, Poland, 29 March 2025

Sir Christopher James Hampton Template:Post-nominals (born 26 January 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter, and translator. He is best known for his play Les Liaisons Dangereuses based on the novel of the same name and the film adaptation. He has thrice received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay: for Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Atonement (2007) and The Father (2020); winning for the former and latter.<ref name="Moreton">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Oscar2008">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Oscar2021">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hampton is also known for his work in the theatre including Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and The Philanthropist. He also translated the plays The Seagull (2008), God of Carnage (2009), The Father (2016), and The Height of the Storm (2019). He also wrote, with Don Black, the book and lyrics for the musical Sunset Boulevard (1994), for which they received Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life and theatrical debut

Hampton was born in Faial, Azores, to British parents Dorothy Patience (née Herrington) and Bernard Patrick Hampton, a marine telecommunications engineer for Cable & Wireless.<ref name="O'Mahony">John O'Mahony "Worlds of his own", The Guardian, 21 April 2001. Retrieved on 9 August 2008.</ref><ref>Christopher Hampton Biography (1946–)</ref> His father's job led the family to settle in Aden, Yemen, and Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt, and later in Hong Kong and Zanzibar. During the Suez Crisis in 1956, the family had to flee Egypt under cover of darkness, leaving their possessions behind.

After a prep school at Reigate in Surrey, Hampton attended the independent boarding school Lancing College near the village of Lancing in West Sussex at the age of 13. There he won house colours for boxing and distinguished himself as a sergeant in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF). Among his contemporaries at Lancing was David Hare, later also a dramatist; poet Harry Guest was a teacher.

From 1964, Hampton read German and French at New College, Oxford, as a Sacher Scholar. He graduated with a starred First Class Degree in 1968.<ref name="Coveney">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hampton became involved in the theatre while at Oxford University. The Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) performed his original play When Did You Last See My Mother?, about adolescent homosexuality. He drew from his own experiences at Lancing.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> Hampton sent the work to the play agent Peggy Ramsay, who interested William Gaskill in it.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> The play was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and soon transferred to the Comedy Theatre; in 1966, Hampton was the youngest writer in the modern era to have a play performed in the West End.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> Hampton's work on screenplays for the cinema also began around this time. He adapted this play for Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes, but a film version was never made.<ref name="Smurthwaite"/>

Stage plays and other works

From 1968 to 1970, Hampton worked as the Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, and also as the company's literary manager.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> He continued to write plays: Total Eclipse, about the French poets and lovers Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, was first performed in 1967 and at the Royal Court in 1968, but it was not well received at the time.<ref name="Billington2007">Template:Cite news</ref> The Philanthropist (1970) is set in an English university town and was influenced by Molière's The Misanthrope. The Royal Court delayed a staging for two years because of an uncertainty over its prospects, but their production was one of the Royal Court's more successful works up to that point.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> The production transferred to the Mayfair Theatre in London's West End and ran for nearly four years, winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Comedy. It reached Broadway in New York City in 1971.<ref name="O'Mahony"/><ref name="Smurthwaite">Template:Cite news</ref>

His agent told him after this success: "You've got a choice: you can write the same play over and over for the next 30 years" or, alternatively, "you can decide to do something completely different every time".<ref name="Caplan">Template:Cite news</ref> He told her that he was writing a play about the "extermination of the Brazilian Indians in the 1960s".<ref name="Caplan"/> Savages, set during the period of the military government and derived from an article "Genocide in Brazil" by Norman Lewis, was first performed in 1973.<ref name="O'Mahony"/> His first produced film adaptation, of Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973), was directed by Patrick Garland, and stars Anthony Hopkins and Claire Bloom.<ref name="Smurthwaite" />

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1976.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

A sojourn in Hollywood led to an unproduced film adaptation of Marlowe's play Edward II and the original script for Carrington. This period also inspired his play Tales from Hollywood (1982). This is a somewhat fictionalised account of exiled European writers living in the United States during the Second World War. (The lead character is based on Ödön von Horváth, who died in Paris in 1938).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The play also explores the different philosophies of Horwath and the German playwright Bertolt Brecht (who lived in the United States in the 1940s). Hampton told The Guardian critic Michael Billington in 2007: "I lean towards the liberal writer, Horvath, rather than the revolutionary Brecht. I suppose I'm working out some internal conflict".<ref name="Billington2007"/> The play was commissioned by the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles; the Group first performed it in 1982.<ref name="LATimes2010">Template:Cite news</ref> The play has been adapted in different versions for British and Polish television.<ref name="LATimes2010"/>

File:2025.03.29. Christopher Hampton Photo Mariusz Kubik 11.JPG

Hampton signs his screenplay for Carrington (1995); Warsaw, Poland, 29 March 2025

Later works

Hampton won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his screen adaptation of his play Dangerous Liaisons (1988), directed by Stephen Frears and starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, and Michelle Pfeiffer.<ref name="Moreton" /> He worked on Carrington (1995) for 18 years, writing multiple drafts. The play explores the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey.<ref name="Smurthwaite" /> Hampton went on to direct the feature film Carrington, starring Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to literature.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

Hampton both wrote and directed Imagining Argentina (2003), his adaptation of the 1987 novel by Lawrence Thornton. It explores society during the military dictatorship of Leopoldo Galtieri, when the government conducted a Dirty War against opponents, killing many in "forced disappearances". It starred Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson. According to Hampton, this period of Argentinian history had not inspired a dramatic work before. "I decided to do something which it would be difficult to finance at a time when, for once, I was bombarded with offers.<ref name="Coveney" /> In 2007, Hampton was nominated for a second Academy Award for his screenplay and adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, directed by Joe Wright and starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, and Saoirse Ronan.<ref name="Oscar2008" />

Since the 1990s, Hampton has created the English translations of the works of French dramatists Yasmina Reza and Florian Zeller. Reza's Art ran for eight years in the West End, and was also produced in the United States.<ref name="Smurthwaite" /> Hampton translated Reza's God of Carnage, which was the third-longest running Broadway play in the 2000s, playing 24 premieres and 452 regular performances. God of Carnage garnered six Tony nominations and three wins in 2009.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> God of Carnage actors James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden, joined Philip Glass, Phillip Noyce and a host of other artists in a short documentary celebrating their Tony Award success and Mr. Hampton's 50 published plays and screenplays.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hampton's translation into English of Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay's Austrian musical Rebecca, based on Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, was supposed to premiere on Broadway in 2012, directed by Francesca Zambello and Michael Blakemore. The production did not open, with the producers, Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza, relinquishing the rights.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2012, Hampton joined forces with Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant to form Hampton Silliphant Management & Productions, which presented the play Appomattox at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The play concerns itself with historic events in the United States, 100 years apart in time: the historic meetings between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, as well as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in 1865, and the later machinations of Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King – which ultimately led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Appomattox was also performed as an opera with Philip Glass at The Kennedy Center in 2015.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2020, Hampton served as screenwriter and executive producer for The Singapore Grip, an international TV mini-series exploring the Japanese invasion of Singapore during WWII.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Adapted from the novel by J.G. Ferrell, the story portrays the intrigues and ultimate upheaval of British colonialism at the time of the Fall of Singapore.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The same year, Hampton co-wrote The Father, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, with Florian Zeller (based on Zeller's 2012 play Le Père), who directed the film in his feature directorial debut. The film received critical acclaim, and both Hampton and Zeller won a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and received a Golden Globe nomination, while the film was nominated in the Best Picture categories.<ref name="Oscar2021"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>"Zooming In on an Oscar Win with Christopher Hampton" https://vimeo.com/916122946</ref>

Hampton was knighted in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to drama.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

In March and April 2021, it was announced that Hampton and Zeller will co-write the adaptation of The Son (which serves as Zeller's and Hampton's follow-up to The Father) with Zeller directing, and Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern attached to star in the film.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="VarietyZellerJackmanDern">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Son had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2022, and was released in the United States on 11 November 2022, by Sony Pictures Classics.

Credits

Plays

• 1964 – When Did You Last See My Mother?
• 1967 – Total Eclipse
• 1969 – The Philanthropist
• 1973 – Savages
• 1975 – Treats
• 1982 – Tales From Hollywood
• 1991 – White Chameleon
• 1994 – Alice's Adventures Under Ground
• 2002 – The Talking Cure
• 2012 – Appomattox<ref name=PlayBill>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 2019 – A German Life

Musicals (book and lyrics)

• 1993 – Sunset Boulevard with Don Black (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber)
• 2001 – Dracula, the Musical with Don Black (music by Frank Wildhorn)
• 2012 – Rebecca (translated from German) (music by Sylvester Levay, original lyrics by Michael Kunze)
• 2013 – Stephen Ward the Musical with Don Black (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber)<ref name="whats">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Adaptations

• 1982 – The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. from the novella by George Steiner
• 1983 – Tartuffe by Molière
• 1985 – Les Liaisons Dangereuses from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos for the Royal Shakespeare Company
• 1993 – Sunset Boulevard for Andrew Lloyd Webber (book for the musical, based on the Billy Wilder film)
• 2001 – Dracula, the Musical for Frank Wildhorn
• 2006 – Embers<ref name="Coveney"/> from the novel by Sándor Márai
• 2009 – The Age of the Fish (in German Jugend ohne Gott) from the novel by Ödön von Horváth
• 2024 - Visit from an Unknown Woman

Films

Year	English title	Writer	Director	Producer	Notes
1973	A Doll's House	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play
1977	Able's Will	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Directed by Stephen Frears for the BBC
1979	Tales from the Vienna Woods	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Directed by Maximilian Schell
1981	The History Man	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Malcolm Bradbury novel for the BBC
1983	The Honorary Consul	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Graham Greene novel
1986	The Wolf at the Door	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
1986	Hotel du Lac	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the novel by Anita Brookner
1986	The Good Father	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the novel by Peter Prince
1986	Arriving Tuesday	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
1988	Dangerous Liaisons	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Adapted from his own play of the same name; directed by Stephen Frears
1989	The Ginger Tree	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Oswald Wynd novel for the BBC
1992	Tales from Hollywood	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of his play for the BBC
1995	Carrington	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Directorial debut
1995	Total Eclipse	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Directed by Agnieszka Holland)
1996	Mary Reilly	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the Valerie Martin novel about Dr. Jekyll's housemaid
1996	The Secret Agent	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Adapted from the Joseph Conrad novel
2002	The Quiet American	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Graham Greene novel
2003	Imagining Argentina	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No
2007	Atonement	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel
2009	Chéri	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
2011	A Dangerous Method	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the John Kerr novel; Directed by David Cronenberg.
2013	The Thirteenth Tale	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the Diane Setterfield's novel
2013	Adoration	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from Doris Lessing's novella
2016	Ali and Nino	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from Kurban Said's novel Ali and Nino
2020	The Father	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the Florian Zeller play
2020	The Singapore Grip	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the J.G. Farrell's 1978 novel
2022	The Son	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Adapted from the Florian Zeller play

Translations

• The Seagull
• Uncle Vanya
• Hedda Gabler
• Don Juan by Molière
• 1973 – A Doll's House
• 1977 – Tales from the Vienna Woods, by Ödön von Horváth
• 1978 – Don Juan Comes Back from the War, by Ödön von Horváth
• 1989 – Faith, Hope and Charity, by Ödön von Horváth
• 1996 – 'Art' by Yasmina Reza
• 1998 – An Enemy of the People
• 2000 – Conversations After a Burial by Yasmina Reza
• 2001 – Life x 3 by Yasmina Reza
• 2008 – God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
• 2009 – Judgement Day, by Ödön von Horváth
• 2010 – Rebecca (musical) by Michael Kunze
• 2014 – The Father by Florian Zeller
• 2015 – The Mother by Florian Zeller
• 2016 – Template:Ill by Florian Zeller
• 2017 – The Lie by Florian Zeller
• 2017 – Christmas Eve by Daniel Kehlmann
• 2018 – The Height of the Storm by Florian Zeller
• 2019 – The Son by Florian Zeller

Librettos

• 2005 – Waiting for the Barbarians, music by Philip Glass
• 2007 – Appomattox, music by Philip Glass
• 2014 – The Trial, music by Philip Glass

Awards and nominations

Organizations	Year	Category	Work	Result	Ref.
Academy Awards	1988	Best Adapted Screenplay	Dangerous Liaisons	Template:Won	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	2007		Atonement	Template:Nom	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	2020		The Father	Template:Won	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
BAFTA Awards	1989	Best Adapted Screenplay	Dangerous Liaisons	Template:Won	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	1995	Best British Film	Carrington	Template:Nom	<ref name="baftas">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	2007	Best British Film	Atonement	Template:Nom	<ref name="baftas" />
	Best Adapted Screenplay	Template:Nom		<ref name="baftas" />
	2020	Best British Film	The Father	Template:Nom	<ref name="baftas" />
	Best Adapted Screenplay	Template:Won		<ref name="baftas" />
Cannes Film Festival	1995	Palme d'Or	Carrington	Template:Nom	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
		Jury Special Prize		Template:Won
Critics' Choice Awards	2020	Best Adapted Screenplay	The Father	Template:Nom	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Golden Globe Awards	2007	Best Screenplay – Motion Picture	Atonement	Template:Nom	<ref name="globes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	2020		The Father	Template:Nom	<ref name="globes" />
Tony Awards	1995	Best Book of a Musical	Sunset Blvd.	Template:Won	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
		Best Original Score		Template:Won
Writers Guild of America Awards	1988	Best Adapted Screenplay	Dangerous Liaisons	Template:Won
Venice International Film Festival	2003	Golden Lion	Imagining Argentina	Template:Nom

See also

• List of British playwrights since 1950
• List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain

Bibliography

• Massimo Verzella, "Embers di Christopher Hampton e la traduzione della malinconia", Paragrafo, II (2006), pp. 69–82

External links

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• Finding aid to Christopher Hampton papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.