Losing Time

John Richard Hopkins (1931 – 1998) was an English film, stage, and television writer. Born in southwest London, he graduated from Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge. He began his career as a studio manager for B B C Television in the 1950s before establishing himself as a writer on the B B C's popular police drama Z-Cars during the early 1960s. His plays for the stage included NEXT OF KIN, which was produced at the National Theatre in 1974 with Harold Pinter directing. In film, Hopkins provided finishing touches to the screenplay for the 1965 James Bond movie Thunderball, and also worked on the script for the 1972 film adaptation of Man of La Mancha. In 1968, his stage play THIS STORY OF YOURS opened, impressing actor Sean Connery so much that he chose it as a personal film project under the working title Something Like the Truth. Connery also acted in the film version, directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1972 as The Offence. In 1986 Hopkins wrote, directed, and produced the film Torment. Hopkins married the actress Shirley Knight in 1969. He died at his home in Woodland Hills, California, in July 1998.