Anthony Creighton

{{Short description|British actor and writer (1922–2005)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}} {{Use British English|date=May 2012}}

'''Anthony Creighton''' (1922, Swanage – 22 March 2005), a British actor and writer, is best known as the co-author of the play ''Epitaph for George Dillon'' with John Osborne.<ref name="telegraph">{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1490897/Anthony-Creighton.html|title=Anthony Creighton|work=The Telegraph|access-date=2017-04-14|language=en}}</ref>

He served in the RAF during the war as a navigator on bomber aircraft. He was awarded the DFC for gallantry for saving the crew of his Halifax bomber over Hamburg.<ref name="osborne">{{cite book |last=Osborne |first=John |author-link=John Osborne |year=1981 |title=A Better Class of Person: An Autobiography, 1929-1956 |location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |pages=222–23 |isbn=0-571-11785-6}}</ref><ref name="indyref">{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/anthony-creighton-308971.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/anthony-creighton-308971.html |archive-date=7 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Anthony Creighton|date=2005-08-30|work=The Independent|access-date=2017-04-14|language=en-GB}}{{cbignore}}</ref> During the war he met Terence Rattigan who was then a wireless operator and air gunner. They appeared together in entertainment for fellow servicemen at RAF ground stations.<ref name="osborne" /> After the war he completed a course at RADA and subsequently joined a company at Barnstaple in Devon. Shortly afterward he formed his own travelling company, the Saga Repertory Group, with £200 given to him by his mother<ref name="telegraph" /> and was joined by three other actors from Barnstaple. An advertisement in ''The Stage'' in 1949 offering actors expenses but no salary was answered by John Osborne who joined the company in Ilfracombe.<ref name="osborne" /> His company took their plays from village to village but enjoyed little success; they presented a summer residency at the Victoria Theatre on Hayling Island but this too was short-lived. Shortly after he collaborated on two plays with Osborne: the first, ''Personal Enemy'', fell foul of the censors at the time; the second was ''An Epitaph for George Dillon''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Heilpern |first=John |year=2006 |title=John Osborne: A Patriot for Us |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/johnosbornepatri0000heil |url-access=registration |publisher=Chatto & Windus |pages=108–9 |isbn=978-0-7011-6780-6}}</ref>

Although Creighton had little other dramatic success, he remained a close friend and confidant of Osborne, and was living with him on a houseboat in the Thames in 1954, the year Osborne wrote ''Look Back in Anger''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Richardson |first=Tony |author-link=Tony Richardson |year=1993 |title=Long Distance Runner: A Memoir|location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |page=74 |isbn=0-571-16852-3}}</ref> Creighton is believed to have been the model for Cliff in the play.{{by whom|date=May 2023}}

In 1960 Creighton co-wrote another play with the American writer-director Bernard Miller, ''Tomorrow with Pictures'', which was produced at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1961. It was to be Creighton's last produced play. Subsequently he taught drama at various London education establishments.<ref name="telegraph" /><ref name="indyref" /> The friendship between Osborne and Creighton did not endure. In some accounts, they drifted apart,<ref name="indyref" /> but according to one biography of Osborne, a drunk Creighton told him at the opening-night party of ''A Patriot for Me'' how much he disliked the play, and Osborne had him thrown out.<ref>{{cite book |last=Whitebrook |first=Peter |year=2015 |title=John Osborne: 'Anger is not about...' |location=London |publisher=Oberon Books |pages=241 |isbn=978-1-78319-877-1}}</ref>

He met Osborne on one last occasion in 1994, at Osborne's country home, to discuss ''George Dillon'' royalty payments. Osborne was by then a diagnosed diabetic and a near shadow of his former self; he died shortly after the meeting. Creighton said of the visit that he would prefer to remember the impecunious but happier times of the 1950s: "I look back on Osborne with love".<ref name="telegraph" /><ref name="indyref" />

Towards the end of his life, Creighton attracted controversy for different reasons. After Osborne's death in 1994, Creighton claimed in an interview with the critic Nicholas de Jongh that he and Osborne had lived together as lovers. Osborne's surviving family were quick to refute any suggestion of homosexuality on Osborne's part. Creighton finally admitted in an interview with Osborne's biographer, John Heilpern, that he had lied to de Jongh and no homosexual relationship had ever existed.<ref name="indyref" /> Creighton's proximity to the Angry Young Men of the 1950s and 1960s make his extensive collection of letters and diaries of considerable historical importance.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}

==References== <references />

{{DEFAULTSORT:Creighton, Anthony}} Category:1922 births Category:2005 deaths Category:English male dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century English dramatists and playwrights Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Category:20th-century English male writers