Harry Palmer Files — 011 — The author in his native environment
Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.
Here are some nice candid photos of author Len Deighton from Google’s Life Magazine image archive. I’m assuming these originally accompanied the article “Spy Writer on the Lam — Britain’s Len Deighton finds fame a huge bother,” by Hugh Moffett in the March 25, 1966 edition of Life.
All photographs are by Paul Schutzer and can be purchased printed and in frames through Google.
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- British author Len Deighton.
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- British author Len Deighton (R).
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- British author Len Deighton (R) washing dishes after dinner with guests.
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- British author Len Deighton (L) with model Paulene Stone (C) and Photographer Brian Duffy (R).
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- British author Len Deighton.
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- British author Len Deighton.
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- British author Len Deighton (R) talking with a traffic cop.
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- British author Len Deighton (R) serves guests baked alaska.
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- British author Len Deighton.
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- British author Len Deighton (L) and wife (C).
Armstrong – indeed you’re right, they do accompany the Life article ‘Hot Spy Writer on the Lam’ from Life. It is a fascinating portrait of sixties London, in which Deighton is very much the man with the gadgets – he had one of the first radio telephones in London in his two-year old (at the time) Hillman car, which by the description from the article sounds like a Heath Robinson affair. Deighton’s ‘untold story’ is described as a series of chapters confirming his central philosophy: “most anybody can do anything if he gets at it.” Pretty much describes his approach to writing, cooking, flying, researching, film-making.
There’s a section of the book “For Bond Lovers Only” that’s written by Peter Evans and describes (in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner) a meeting between Fleming and Deighton, where he mentions that car phone (I’ll be talking about this meeting a bit later next week), and I’ve been wondering if it was true.
Do you happen to have a copy of that Life article that’s easily sharable? I’d love to read it!
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