Harry Alan Towers

Harry Alan Towers (born in London on October 19, 1920) is a radio and film producer and screenwriter, who has produced over a hundred feature films and who continues to write and produce well into his eighties.

He sometimes uses the pseudonym Peter Welbeck. Formally a child actor, he became a prolific radio writer while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II. In 1946 he and his mother Margaret Miller Towers started a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio shows around the world, including "The Black Museum" with Orson Welles, "The Secrets of Scotland Yard" with Clive Brook, "Horatio Hornblower" in which Michael Redgrave played the famous character created by C.S. Forester, and a series based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring Sir John Gielgud as Holmes, Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson, and Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty. Sir John's brother, Val Gielgud, directed several episodes [Val Gielgud and Sherlock Holmes [http://www.irdp.co.uk/GIELGUD/valbbc5.htm] ] .

In the mid 1950s he produced television shows for ITV then went into producing and sometimes writing feature films beginning in 1962. Towers filmed in various countries such as Ireland, South Africa, Hong Kong, Bulgaria and others. A number of his films and scripts have been based on the works of Sax Rohmer ("Fu Manchu", "Sumuru"), Agatha Christie ("And Then There Were None" and the Miss Marple series) and the plays of Edgar Wallace.

He collaborated with Jesus Franco during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is married to the actress Maria Rohm who has appeared in many of his movies.

In 1983, "Lobster Magazine" ran a long article [Lobster no. 2, 1983 [http://www.rogerdog.co.uk] ] , citing many reliable sources, alleging Towers' links with (among others) Stephen Ward, Peter Lawford, the Soviet Union, and a vice ring at the United Nations. Hearst Corporation newspapers had already mentioned Towers' name in a 1963 article featuring coded references to a liaison between a pre-White House John F Kennedy and a known prostitute. ["JFK - The Scandals: Revealed", tv documentary directed by Harvey Lilley for Quickfire Media, 2006]

References

Further reading

The book "" (1994) by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs dedicates an entry to him.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0869935/ Harry Alan Towers on IMDb]