Ray Cooney

Ray Cooney
Born	Raymond George Alfred Cooney 30 May 1932 (1932-05-30) (age 79) London, England
Occupation	Playwright, actor
Nationality	United Kingdom
Spouse	Linda Cooney
Information
Debut works	One for the Pot
Magnum opus	Run for Your Wife
Works with	John Chapman Gene Stone Earl Barrett

Raymond George Alfred Cooney, OBE (born 30 May 1932) is an English playwright and actor. His biggest success, Run for Your Wife, lasted nine years in London's West End and is its longest-running comedy.^[1] He has had 17 of his plays performed there.^[2]

Biography

Cooney began acting in 1946, and appeared in many of the Whitehall farces of Brian Rix throughout the fifties and sixties. It was during this time that he co-wrote his first play One For The Pot.

Together with Tony Hilton, he co-wrote the screenplay for the British comedy film What a Carve Up! (1961), featuring Sid James and Kenneth Connor.

Cooney co-wrote a farce with his son Michael, Tom, Dick and Harry. Cooney's farces combine a traditional British bawdiness with structural complication, as characters leap to assumptions, are forced to pretend to be things that they aren't, and often talk at cross-purposes to hilarious effect.

In 1983, Cooney created the Theatre of Comedy Company and became its artistic director. During his tenure the company produced over twenty plays such as Pygmalion starring Peter O'Toole and John Thaw, Loot, and Run For Your Wife.

Cooney has also appeared on TV and in several movies, including a movie adaptation of his successful theatrical farce Not Now, Darling (1973), which he co-wrote with John Roy Chapman.

In 2005, Cooney was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama.^[3]

Ray Cooney is greatly admired in France where he is known as "Le Feydeau anglais", which means "The English Feydeau", in reference to the French playwright Georges Feydeau who wrote French Farces. A far more complete biography of Ray Cooney is available on French wikipedia.

Personal life

Cooney's son Michael is a screenwriter and wrote the original screenplay for the film Identity starring John Cusack.

Bibliography

• Who Were You With Last Night? (1962)
• Chase me, Comrade (1964)
• Charlie Girl (1965)
• One for the Pot (1966)
• Stand by Your Bedouin (1966)
• My Giddy Aunt (1967)
• Move Over Mrs. Markham (1969)
• Why Not Stay for Breakfast? (1970)
• Come Back to My Place (1973)
• Not Now, Darling (1973)
• There Goes the Bride (1974)
• Two into One (1981)
• Run for Your Wife (1983)
• Wife Begins at Forty (1985)
• It Runs in the Family (1987)
• Out of Order (1991)
• Funny Money (1994)
• Caught in the Net (2001)
• Tom, Dick and Harry (2003)
• Time's Up (2005)

References

1. ^ "Artist: Ray Cooney". Art & Culture. 2009. http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=1227. Retrieved 2009-02-03. 
2. ^ "In the Farce Lane". UK Writer (Writers' Guild of Great Britain). Spring 2005. http://www.writersguild.org.uk/public/008_Featurearticl/026_RayCooney.html. Retrieved 2009-02-03. 
3. ^ "Dramatist Cooney becomes an OBE". BBC News. 31 December 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/4135823.stm. Retrieved 2009-02-03. 

External links

• Ray Cooney at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ray Cooney at the Internet Movie Database
• Play synopses and biography at Film Rights Ltd

Persondata
Name	Cooney, Ray
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1932-05-30
Place of birth	London, England
Date of death
Place of death