Paul Dehn, born November 5th, 1912 in Manchester, died September 30th, 1976, was the Oscar-winning screenwriter responsible for the story or script for all the Apes sequels.
Beginning his career as a film reviewer for several British newspapers, Dehn was trained as an SOE operative during World War II - alongside Christopher Lee, Xan Fielding and Pierre Boulle - and was stationed at Camp X in Canada. After the war he wrote plays, operettas, and musicals for the stage, and was responsible for the lyrics for songs in two films, The Innocents (1961) and Moulin Rouge (1952).
He famously co-wrote the screenplay (with Richard Maibaum) for the James Bond classic Goldfinger (1964), as well as the other sixties espionage films The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) and The Deadly Affair (1967).
When 20th Century Fox decided to make a sequel to Planet Of The Apes, they approached the original screenwriter Rod Serling and author Pierre Boulle to contribute, but their ideas failed to interest the studio. Dehn was hired to collaborate with associate producer Mort Abrahams to develop a script for what was then known as Planet Of The Apes Revisited. Following the success of what eventually became Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, Dehn became the Apes screenwriter of choice.
Due to ill health he was unable to complete his work on Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, so husband and wife team John William Corrington & Joyce Hooper Corrington were drafted to create a screenplay from his original story.
Dehn's final credit was for the 1974 film Murder On The Orient Express. He died in 1976, aged 63.
"My mind really boggles every time I've had to do an Apes picture" - Paul Dehn, 1972.
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