John Hastings Turner

John Hastings Turner (16 December 1891 – 29 February 1956), 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. 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. which remained his home for the rest of his life. They had one child, a daughter. 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 , 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 (A Letter of Warning, 1932 ), Nora Swinburne (A Voice Said Goodnight, 1932, Cedric Hardwicke, Boris Karloff and Ralph Richardson (The Ghoul, 1933 ), 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.

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.