John Hastings Turner


John Hastings Turner, frequently referred to as Hastings Turner or J. Hastings Turner, was an English novelist, dramatist and theatre director. His works performed on stage and in film in Britain and the United States from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Biography

Turner was born in Kensington, London on 16 December 1891, the second child and eldest son of Augustus Turner, a solicitor, and his wife Annie, Hockley. A younger brother was Maxwell Turner, later a leading barrister. Turner was educated at Rugby School and St John's College, Oxford.
He turned to writing early in life: two of his plays were produced before he reached the age of 22, and during the First World War, in which he fought, Lena Ashwell appeared in his Iris Intervenes, which she staged at short notice in 1915 so that the author could see it before rejoining his regiment – the Middlesex – in France. He was invalided out of the Army in 1916 and resumed his theatrical career.
Turner married the film actress, Laura Cowie, on 20 June 1918. They later settled in Blue Tiles Farm near Fakenham, Norfolk, which remained his home for the rest of his life. They had one child, a daughter.
An early published novel of his from 1919, Simple Souls, was made into a film in 1920 with a scenario by Fred Myton, directed by Robert Thornby. In 1926, Turner's play The Scarlet Lady, a comedy, opened at the Criterion Theatre in London, starring Marie Tempest, a friend and the driving force behind the establishment of the actors' union Equity. Supporting Tempest was an ingénue, Fabia Drake, who became Tempest's confidante and then Turner's sister-in-law through marriage to his brother Maxwell.
Thereafter, in addition to his solo work, Turner collaborated with other writers, including Frederick Lonsdale and Roland Pertwee, with the latter of whom he wrote plays, scenarios or dialogues for a number of productions in the early 1930s, including a series of films directed by John Daumery and William C. McGann, and Irving Asher's now-lost 1935 UK production Murder at Monte Carlo directed by Michael Barringer and starring Errol Flynn in his first major role. Turner's work was performed by other leading actors including Margot Grahame, Nora Swinburne, and Jane Baxter (The Night of the Party, 1935, directed by Michael Powell.
From the late 1930s Turner did some writing – and Cowie occasional acting – for productions by The Rank Organisation, which had bought film studios like Gaumont-British that Turner had previously worked for.
Turner retired from writing for the theatre after the Second World War. He died at his home in Norfolk in 1956, at the age of 63.

Theatre works

  • Account Rendered, 1913
  • Havoc, 1913
  • Iris Intervenes, 1915
  • Nothing New, 1916
  • Bubbly, 1917
  • A Breath of Fresh Air, 1917
  • Tails Up, 1918
  • Hullo, America, 1918
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, 1919
  • Back Again, 1919
  • Everywoman's Privilege, 1920
  • The Naughty Princess, 1920
  • Jumble Sale, 1920
  • Now and Then, 1921
  • Fun of the Fayre, 1921
  • Mayfair and Montmartre, 1922
  • The Lilies of the Field, 1923
  • His Queen, 1925
  • The Sea Urchin, 1925
  • Cleopatra, 1925
  • Betty in Mayfair, 1925
  • Merely Molly, 1926
  • The Scarlet Ladv, 1926
  • The Spot on the Sun, 1927
  • Lady Mary, 1928
  • The Lord of the Manor, 1928
  • Wake Up and Dream, 1929
  • To Account Rendered, 1931
  • Punchinello, 1932
  • This Inconstancy, 1933
  • For the Defence, 1934
  • Follow the Sun, 1935
  • Venus in Silk, 1937
  • Mother's Gone A-Hunting
As a director, Turner staged Honours Easy, It's a Pity About Humanity, 1930, The Man Who Pays the Piper, 1931, Punchinello, 1932, Once a Husband, 1932, This Inconstancy, 1933 and Laughter in Court, 1938.