Robert Ardrey facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Ardrey
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(c.1960)
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| Born | October 16, 1908 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Died | January 14, 1980 (aged 71) Kalk Bay, South Africa |
| Occupation | Writer, screenwriter, and playwright |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago, Phi Beta Kappa, 1930 |
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| Spouses | Helen Johnson (m. 1938–1960; divorced) Berdine Grunewald (m. 1960–1980; his death) |
Robert Ardrey (born October 16, 1908 – died January 14, 1980) was an American writer. He wrote plays, movie scripts, and books about science. He is perhaps best known for his book The Territorial Imperative (1966).
Ardrey started his career writing for Broadway and Hollywood. Later, in the 1950s, he went back to studying anthropology. This is the study of human societies and cultures. He also studied behavioral sciences, which look at how people and animals act.
Robert Ardrey won many awards for his writing. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937. In 1940, he won the first Sidney Howard Memorial Award. He was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1966. This was for his movie script for Khartoum. His most famous play is called Thunder Rock.
Ardrey's science books challenged common ideas about human behavior. His books, African Genesis (1961) and The Territorial Imperative (1966), were very popular. They helped more people learn about evolutionary science. Some scientists even said his work inspired them to study science.
Contents
Robert Ardrey's Life Story
Ardrey was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father was an editor and publisher. His mother raised him after his father died in 1919. This was during the influenza epidemic.
He grew up in Chicago and went to the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1930. While there, he studied creative writing with Thornton Wilder. Wilder became his lifelong friend and guide.
His first play, Star Spangled, opened on Broadway in 1935. It only ran for a few days. However, it helped him win a Guggenheim Fellowship. This award gave him money to focus on writing plays. Several of his plays, like Casey Jones and Thunder Rock, were shown on Broadway.
In 1938, he moved to Hollywood. He became a screenwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He eventually became MGM's highest-paid writer. He wrote many movie scripts there. These included The Three Musketeers (1948) and Madame Bovary (1949). He also wrote the original script for Khartoum (1966). This script earned him an Academy Award nomination.
During the 1950s, Ardrey became unhappy with Hollywood. He felt that money was becoming too important in creative decisions. At the same time, he became interested again in human origins. He had studied this at the University of Chicago. In 1956, he moved to Geneva, Switzerland, with his family.
He spent the next few years traveling in Africa. He was researching for his first book on human behavior, African Genesis (1961). This book became a huge success worldwide. He then wrote three more books in his Nature of Man Series. His most famous book from this series is The Territorial Imperative (1966).
In 1960, he moved to Rome, Italy, with his second wife. They lived there for 17 years. In 1977, they moved to Kalk Bay, South Africa. He continued to write important books until he died on January 14, 1980.
Robert Ardrey's Theater and Film Career
After college, Robert Ardrey wrote a novel, plays, and short stories. His mentor, Thornton Wilder, advised him to wait to publish until his writing style was strong. This moment came with his play Star Spangled.
Star Spangled opened on Broadway in 1935. It was a comedy about an immigrant family in Chicago. It didn't do well, but it caught the eye of famous playwright Sidney Howard. This led to Ardrey receiving a Guggenheim fellowship. This award helped him keep writing plays in Chicago.
While in Chicago, Ardrey wrote two more plays: Casey Jones and How to Get Tough About It. Both plays were not successful on Broadway. Ardrey joked that Hollywood then wanted him because his failures were so big!
He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and moved to Hollywood. He worked on several movie projects. In 1938, he took a break from Hollywood to write a new play. He moved back east with his new wife, Helen Johnson. He then started writing Thunder Rock.
The Play Thunder Rock
Robert Ardrey wrote Thunder Rock as World War II was starting in Europe. He believed America needed to join the war. He felt Americans were too focused on their own country. He got the idea for the play during a performance of Swan Lake.
The play is about a journalist who has lost hope in the world. He becomes a lighthouse keeper on a lonely rock. There, he imagines people from a shipwreck a century ago. These people were full of hope for a new world. By talking to these imagined characters, he starts to find his own hope again. In the end, he returns to real life.
Thunder Rock opened on Broadway in November 1939. Critics didn't like it much at first. They thought it was too serious. However, later people said the play was very smart. It predicted that America would eventually join the war. It also warned about threats from both Europe and Asia.
In 1940, Ardrey found out that Thunder Rock was a huge hit in London! The play helped keep British spirits high during the war. A famous critic, Harold Hobson, said Ardrey helped the British people "never to surrender."
After its success in London, Thunder Rock became famous. The BBC broadcast a radio version in 1940 and a TV version in 1946. In 1942, it was made into a film, also starring Michael Redgrave.
After the war, Thunder Rock was performed in many cities, including Vienna, Prague, and Berlin. It was the first modern play shown in the American zone of occupied Berlin. It is still performed in universities and theaters around the world.
Hollywood Films (1939–1946)
After Thunder Rock closed on Broadway, Ardrey went back to Hollywood. His first official movie credit was the script for They Knew What They Wanted (1940). It starred Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton.
In 1946, Ardrey made a special deal with a Hollywood studio. He was allowed to write the script for The Green Years from his home. This was very unusual at the time. The Green Years made a lot of money and was one of the most successful films of 1946.
After these movie successes, Ardrey returned to New York to write another play, Jeb.
The Play Jeb
Jeb was a play about a disabled African American soldier. He returns home after fighting in the war. He has lost a leg but learned to use an adding machine. When he tries to find work, he faces unfair treatment because of his race.
Jeb opened in New York in 1946. Many critics liked it. One called it the best play about civil rights. However, it closed after only one week. It was too expensive to produce and didn't make enough money. Ardrey and others felt the play was ahead of its time.
Hollywood Films (1946–1966)
After Jeb, Ardrey moved back to Hollywood. He wrote scripts for MGM. In 1947, he wrote the script for The Three Musketeers. This movie became the second-highest-grossing film of 1948. He also wrote the script for Madame Bovary in 1949.
In 1947, Ardrey was elected to the board of the Screen Writers Guild. He helped defend writers during a difficult time in Hollywood. He even flew to Washington D.C. with famous actors like Humphrey Bogart to support writers who were being unfairly accused.
In the early 1950s, Ardrey became more and more unhappy with Hollywood. He felt that banks were controlling creative decisions. He started traveling a lot, visiting places like Paris, Rome, and Greece. He said these trips helped him prepare for his book African Genesis.
In 1952, Ardrey joined the presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson. He was part of a group called "Hollywood for Stevenson."
In 1954, Ardrey wrote a play called Sing Me No Lullaby. It was about people being unfairly accused during the Cold War. A reviewer from New York Times praised Ardrey for describing this difficult situation.
Ardrey then turned his attention to Africa. He started his important work in paleoanthropology. But he also kept writing movie scripts. In 1966, he wrote the Academy Award-nominated film Khartoum.
The Film Khartoum
The movie Khartoum was made in 1966. It tells the true story of British General Charles "Chinese" Gordon. He defended the city of Khartoum in Sudan from an army led by the Mahdi.
Charlton Heston played General Gordon, and Laurence Olivier played the Mahdi. Charlton Heston said it was a "helluva good script." In 1967, Khartoum earned Ardrey a nomination for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Robert Ardrey died in South Africa at the age of 71.
Robert Ardrey's Work on Africa
In 1955, Robert Ardrey planned a trip to Africa. A publisher offered to buy anything he wrote there. At the same time, he reconnected with a famous geologist, Richard Foster Flint. Flint arranged for Ardrey to look into claims made by Raymond Dart. Dart had found fossils of an early human ancestor called Australopithecus africanus.
Ardrey met Dart in South Africa and saw his evidence. Dart had found many fossils in a cave. Some bones, like gazelle jaws and antelope arm bones, were found much more often than expected. These bones could have been used as tools. This led Dart to believe that early humans used weapons before their brains grew very large.
Ardrey wrote an article about Dart's idea. It got a lot of attention and was reprinted in Science Digest. This theory was later shown to be incorrect, but it was very important at the time. This trip sparked Ardrey's deep interest in human origins and his science writing.
Robert Ardrey's Science Writing
Ardrey spent the later part of his life as a science writer. Even though this seems different from his early career, many people say his themes were similar. He always wrote about how humans and animals deal with each other.
Scientists praised Ardrey's writing. The famous biologist E. O. Wilson said Ardrey was like a "lyric poet of human evolution." He said Ardrey captured the big ideas that scientists often felt but couldn't put into words.
Ardrey wrote for general readers about paleoanthropology. This field combines anthropology, ethology (animal behavior), paleontology (fossils), zoology (animals), and human evolution. He was praised for connecting different scientific areas.
His main ideas were in his Nature of Man Series, which has four books:
- African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961)
- The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations (1966)
- The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder (1970)
- The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man (1976)
Along with Raymond Dart and Konrad Lorenz, Robert Ardrey was a key supporter of the hunting hypothesis and the killer ape theory. Ardrey believed that early human ancestors survived by learning to hunt. This changed their survival skills and how they lived together. He thought this led to big changes in the human brain.
The killer ape theory suggested that aggression, or being forceful, was a key trait that made early humans different from other primates. Ardrey argued that aggression was an inherited trait still present in humans. He disagreed with the idea that humans are born as a "blank slate" and only learn behavior. This debate made many people interested in human origins.
Ardrey's ideas influenced filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke for their movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. More recently, some of Ardrey's ideas about aggression have been disproven. For example, some early human ancestors were vegetarians. However, his books were very important in shaping public views at the time.
Researchers Who Influenced Ardrey
Robert Ardrey talked to many scientists while writing his books. Here are some of the researchers whose work helped shape his ideas:
- Warder Clyde Allee
- Charles Kimberlin Brain
- Robert Broom
- Helmut Karl Buechner
- Clarence Ray Carpenter
- Raymond Dart
- Henry Eliot Howard
- James Kitching
- Louis Leakey
- Eugène Marais
- Kenneth Oakley
- George Schaller
Robert Ardrey's Books
Fiction Books
- Worlds Beginning (1944)
- The Brotherhood of Fear (1952)
- Plays of Three Decades: Thunder Rock / Jeb / Shadow of Heroes (1968) (This book includes a story about his own life.)
Nonfiction Books
- African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961)
- The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations (1966)
- The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder (1970)
- The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man (1976)
- Aggression and Violence in Man: A Dialogue Between Dr. L.S.B. Leakey and Robert Ardrey (1971)
Robert Ardrey's Plays
- Star Spangled (1936)
- Casey Jones (1938)
- How to Get Tough About It (1938)
- Thunder Rock (1939) (This play was made into a film in 1942.)
- God and Texas (1943)
- Jeb (1946)
- Sing Me No Lullaby (1954)
- Shadow of Heroes (1958) (Also known as Stone and Star in London.)
Robert Ardrey's Screenplays (Movie Scripts)
- They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
- A Lady Takes a Chance (1943)
- The Green Years (1946)
- Song of Love (1947)
- The Three Musketeers (1948)
- Madame Bovary (1949)
- The Secret Garden (1949)
- The Schumann Story (1950) (A short film based on Song of Love)
- The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955)
- The Power and the Prize (1956)
- The Wonderful Country (1959)
- Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)
- Khartoum (1966) (Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay)
- Out of Africa (1969, not produced)
- The Animal Within (1975) (A documentary)
Awards and Honors
- 1935: Sergel Drama Award
- 1937: Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1940: Sidney Howard Memorial Award
- 1961: Theresa Helburn Memorial Award
- 1963: Willkie Brothers Grant for Anthropology
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
See Also
- Dawn of Humanity (2015 PBS film)
Images for kids
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Robert Ardrey in 1960
