Jack Whittingham

Who was Jack Whittingham?

Jack Whittingham was a British playwright, film critic, and screenwriter. He was educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford.

Beginning with the film Q Planes, Whittingham was a prolific screenwriter. He is particularly famous for having collaborated with Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory on a James Bond screenplay for a film. When these plans were scrapped, Fleming novelized the work into his ninth official novel, Thunderball; however, the novel only credited Fleming. McClory and Whittingham then sued Fleming, which led to a settlement in 1963 that gave McClory the film rights to the novel. During the lawsuit, Whittingham stepped down as 'co-plaintiff' and stood by Kevin as 'principal witness', having previously signed away all his rights "of whatsoever nature" entirely when the screenplay was presumed finished. As a result of the settlement, future versions of the novel were forced to credit, based on the screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming. Two adaptations of Thunderball were subsequently made, the first being Thunderball in 1965 as part of the series of films from Eon Productions.