Simon Gray, 1970 (photo)

Simon Gray CBE ( 1936 – 2008) English playwright, novelist and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature, at London university, for 20 years. He wrote five novels and 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for his eight volumes of witty, outspoken and anti-politically correct diaries, particularly the trilogy known as the Smoking Diaries. His plays include Butley (1971), Otherwise Engaged (1975), Quartermaine's Terms (1981) and The Late Middle Classes (1999).e received many honours and awards and was appointed CBE in 2994.