American-British writer, a novelist and scenarist, he was also a screenwriter of “Nothing but the Best,” 1964 and “Darling,” which won the Oscar in 1965.
Frederic Michael Raphael was born in Chicago to an American mother and British father. An only child, whose parents were both only children, he lived with his family in the U.S., mostly in New York, until age seven. His father worked for Shell Oil Company, first in sales and later as an executive. His parents, though Jewish in heritage, did not practice Judism and their attitudes were liberal and non-political. In 1938, they moved to England where his father had a new job. They lived in a flat in Putney, in South West London. He soon lost his American accent and became English.
Raphael attended typical middle-class preparatory school, happily, and then Charterhouse, unhappily. He obtained a scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge. There he read Classics and Moral Sciences and Philosophy. A bout of anti-Semitism at Charterhouse (where such incidents were encouraged) made him feel utterly isolated.
Always an amateur painter, this visualization led him to film. In his twenties he dabbled in the field and then abandoned it. He came back to it in 1963, when he wrote “Nothing But the Best,” which won a Screenwriters’ Guild Award in 1964. Next he wrote “Darling” which won another Screenwriters’ Guild Award, the British Film Academy Award for best screenplay and the American Academy Award (the Oscar) for 1965. His screenplay “Two for the Road,” 1967, was nominated for an Academy Award.
Raphael is the author of numerous novels and short story collections, including “Obbligato,” 1956, “Richard’s Things,” 1973, “The Glittering Prizes,” 1977 and “Coast to Coast,” 1999. He has adapted for the screen the works of Thomas Hardy (“Far from the Madding Crowd”), Iris Murdoch (“A Severed Head”), Henry James (“Daisy Miller”) and Arthur Schnitzler (“Traumnovelle,” filmed as “Eyes Wide Shut”). Working for over two years with director Stanley Kubrick on “Eyes Wide Shut,” which was to be Kubrick’s last film, he gained his confidence and respect. Raphael’s biography in collaboration with Kubrick, “Eyes Wide Open,” was published in June 1999. “The Great Philosophers,” which he co-edited, is scheduled for publication in September 2000.
He married Sylvia Glatt, whom he calls “Beetle,” in 1955. They have three children. His interests include philosophy and bridge. He divides his time between France and England.
Link to Wikipedia biography