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Endpoint: Kenneth Tynan (Writer)



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created on: 13/05/2025
by: bob (9916)
 
 

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General info :
Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England – 26 July 1980, Santa Monica, California, U.S. (aged 53)) was an English theatre critic and writer. Initially making his mark as a critic at The Observer, he praised John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and encouraged the emerging wave of British theatrical talent.

In 1963, Tynan was appointed the new National Theatre Company's literary manager.

An opponent of theatre censorship, he was the first person to deliberately say the word "fuck" during a live television broadcast in 1965, although Miriam Margolyes had earlier used the expletive accidentally.

Later in life, he settled in California, where he resumed his writing career.

On 25 January 1951, Tynan married the American author Elaine Dundy after a three-month romance. The following year, their daughter, Tracy (born 12 May 1952, Westminster, London), was named after the character in The Philadelphia Story, Tracy Lord, played by Katharine Hepburn.

Tynan's career took off in 1952 when he was hired as a theatre critic for the London Evening Standard.

Tynan was highly critical of what he called "the Loamshire play", a genre of English country house drama he felt dominated the early 1950s British stage and was wasting the talents of playwrights and actors. He espoused a new theatrical realism, best exemplified in the works of the playwrights who became known as the "Angry Young Men".

Tynan and the actor Harold Lang co-wrote a radio play, The Quest for Corbett (1956), which was broadcast at least twice in the BBC Third Programme in the mid-1950s. From 1956 to 1958, Tynan was the script editor for Ealing Studios, and co-wrote, with Seth Holt, the film Nowhere to Go (1958).

From 1958 to 1960, Tynan became known in the United States by contributing "some superb reviews" to The New Yorker. He also was a contributor to Playboy magazine in the 1960s and 70s.
His marriage had become increasingly difficult in spite of his success (and Dundy's: she had published her first novel in 1958). Both had extramarital affairs (his much more blatant than hers) and he had developed a dependence on alcohol. His sexual tastes had always favoured sadomasochism, which strained the marriage as well. Dundy wrote in her memoir Life Itself (2002): "To cane a woman on her bare buttocks, to hurt and humiliate her, was what gave him his greatest sexual satisfaction."

After his first period writing for The New Yorker, Tynan returned in 1960 to The Observer, where he remained its theatre critic until mid-1963, when he joined the National Theatre Company.

Tyan was a supporter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. In 1964 Tynan joined the Who Killed Kennedy Committee? set up by Bertrand Russell.

When he became the National Theatre's literary manager, Tynan ceased to be the theatre critic for The Observer, but he stayed on the paper for several more years as a film reviewer. Tynan in particular played an important role in the National's choice of plays, pushing Laurence Olivier (the British National Theatre Company's first artistic director) into more adventurous selections than his own instincts might have led him to.

On 13 November 1965, Tynan participated in a live TV debate, broadcast as part of the BBC's late-night satirical show BBC-3. He was asked whether he would allow a play to be staged in which sexual intercourse was represented on the stage, and replied: "Well, I think so, certainly. I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden. At the time, this was believed to be the first time the word "fuck" had been spoken on British television, although at least three prior claims have been asserted.
In response to public outcry, the BBC was forced to issue a formal apology.
Tynan's left-wing politics and lifestyle made him something of a poster boy for 1960s radical chic and champagne socialism in London.

An erotic revue that Tynan coordinated and partly wrote, Oh! Calcutta!, debuted in 1969 and became one of the most successful theatre hits of all time. It included scenes by various authors, including Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard, John Lennon and Edna O'Brien, as well as music and featured frequent nudity.

Throughout the decade, Tynan wrote a series of influential profiles for The New Yorker, on such subjects as Louise Brooks, Tom Stoppard, Mel Brooks, and Johnny Carson. In 1976, he moved with his family to California, in hopes of easing his emphysema.

Tynan's first marriage deteriorated to the point where he was living apart from Dundy, and they finally divorced in May 1964.
In December 1962, he had met Kathleen Halton, the daughter of wartime CBC correspondent Matthew Halton and sister of contemporary CBC journalist David Halton. Tynan convinced her to leave her husband and live with him. On 30 June 1967, before a New Jersey Justice of the Peace, Tynan married a six-months-pregnant Halton, with Marlene Dietrich as witness. Tynan's second marriage began falling apart, largely because of his "insistence on total sexual latitude for himself, fidelity for his wife".

On 26 July 1980, Tynan died in Santa Monica, California, of pulmonary emphysema, aged 53. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.
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Married to [m. 1951 - div. 1964] : Elaine Dundy
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Item number : 69363

Submitted by : bob (9916)
on : 13/05/2025
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Last updated on: 13/05/2025