Harry Alan Towers given name Harry
Harry Alan Towers (19 October 1920 – 31 July 2009) was a British radio and independent film producer and screenwriter. He wrote numerous screenplays for the films he produced, often under the pseudonym Peter Welbeck. He produced over 80 feature films and continued to write and produce well into his eighties. Towers was married to the actress Maria Rohm, who appeared in many of his films.Background
The son of a theatrical agent, Towers was born in Wandsworth, and became a child actor after attending the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. He then became a prolific radio writer while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II becoming head of the RAF radio unit on the British Forces Broadcasting Service attaining the rank of Pilot Officer.In 1946, he and his mother Margaret Miller Towers started a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio programmes around the world, including The Lives of Harry Lime and The Black Museum with Orson Welles, Secrets of Scotland Yard with Clive Brook, Horatio Hornblower in which Michael Hordern played the famous character created by C. S. Forester, and a series based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring John Gielgud as Holmes, Ralph Richardson as Watson, and Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty.
Based on his radio success, in the mid-1950s he produced television shows for ITV such as Armchair Theatre, The Golden Fleece, The Boy About the Place, Teddy Gang, The Lady Asks for Help, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Suicide Club, The Little Black Book, The New Adventures of Martin Kane, A Christmas Carol, 24 Hours a Day, Down to the Sea, Gun Rule, Dial 999 and many others.
On 7 April 1956, Billboard magazine announced J. Elroy McCaw's WINS in New York made a deal with Harry Alan Towers for deejay Alan Freed to do a special taped 1/2-hour rock 'n' roll record show on Saturday nights over Radio Luxembourg, which beamed to most of the countries of Free Europe.
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