JamesM

Writer for television (Ghost Squad, Sir Francis Drake, Strange Report and The Sweeney) and film (Vampire Lovers, Twins of Evil, Diabolik, Lust for a Vampire) and very active in the BECTU union, Tudor gates passed away at his home in Last around Janurary 14th.

harryfielder

RIP indeed...

Aitch,

http://www.turnipnet.com/aitch/aitch/gallery.htm

julian_craster

The Times January 29, 2007

Tudor Gates
1930 - January 12, 2007

Successful playwright and screenplay writer whose works ranged from whodunnits to soft porn


In the 1970s the British screenwriter and playwright Tudor Gates wrote the scripts for a memorable trilogy of female vampire films for Hammer Films — The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil — and all three became cult horror classics.
Brazenly exploitative and laced with heaving bosoms, lesbianism and blood-red lipstick, the films featured stars such as Peter Cushing and Ralph Bates (both expressed their distaste for the scripts), and although they were dismissed by critics the films were hugely successful at the box office.

Gates became wealthy and was able to devote more time to his first loves: directing plays and writing old-fashioned whodunnits. Two of his thrillers, Who Killed Agatha Christie? and Who Saw Him Die?, enjoyed long runs in the West End.
Tudor Gates was born in 1930 and grew up in the East End of London. He began his career as a touring stage manager and wrote in his spare time. When his first play, The Guv’nor, starring Michael Hordern and Coral Browne, was produced in 1955, he decided to become a full-time writer.
He began writing TV scripts in the early 1960s, for such series as The Strange Report, Sir Francis Drake, The Saint, The Avengers and The Sentimental Agent. In 1968 he was one of the nine credited writers who worked on Roger Vadim’s sci-fi fantasy film Barbarella, which starred Jane Fonda.
Gates wrote The Vampire Lovers for Hammer Films in 1970, a Gothic drama loosely based on Sheridan le Fanu’s Camilla and featuring Ingrid Pitt as a lesbian vampire. The same year he wrote Lust for a Vampire, starring Ralph Bates — it was a box-office hit but its director, Jimmy Sangster, described it as “an embarrassment”. Twins of Evil (1971), which completed the trilogy, starred Peter Cushing and Dennis Price.
Gates’s other film credits included the taut thriller Fright (1971), which starred Ian Bannen as an escaped lunatic terrorising a young Susan George, and The Optimists of Nine Elms (1973), a charming, sentimental drama about an East End busker. Originally meant as a vehicle for Danny Kaye, it starred Peter Sellers, who gave one of his most understated performances.
Gates also wrote under several pseudonyms, including Edward Hyde and Teddy White, and under both names wrote a series of soft porn comedies, including Confessions of the Naughty Nymphos, which became staple fare at the seedy Jacey cinemas in the 1970s.
West End thrillers were immensely popular in the 1970s and Gates’s Who Saw Him Die? starring Stratford Johns had a long run at the Haymarket Theatre, while his masterly whodunnit Who Killed Agatha Christie? enjoyed similar success at both the Ambassadors and Mayfair theatres. Another drama, The Kidnap Game, with Hayley Mills and Richard Todd, was presented at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. He also had success with several comedies, including Saving Ardley and The Ladies Who Lunch, the latter being a staple with amateur companies.
He wrote several novels as well as the seminal writers’ handbook, The Craft of Screenwriting, and Kidnapping Ronnie (2006), an account of the 1981 abduction of the train robber Ronnie Biggs from Brazil.
For much of his career Gates was a leading member of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (Bectu). Unlike many of his colleagues he was not a supporter of the Labour Party, and his politics were those of an old-style Liberal, a party for which he once stood as a general election candidate. His support for Bectu did not stop him from mounting legal challenges against what he saw as undue left-wing influence or unfair electoral practices.
An old-fashioned craftsman, Gates was a familiar figure in London’s theatreland. Always impeccably dressed, he resembled an old-style actor manager. In recent years he had suffered from heart disease but he still continued to produce and write for the stage.


Tudor Gates, screenwriter and playwright, was born in 1930. He died on January 12, 2007, aged 76

faceoff

Vampire to Lust for a Vampire! Thank you Mr Gates and rest in peace.

I was weaned on those films. Horror with more than a hint of lesbianism.
Now me - I want one of those nice ageless vampire ladies to lay with. Toothsome I think the word is.

image45

Gosh another great name leaves us and its only just the end of January 2007.

"Seya next time!"