Playwright and journalist Hugh Leonard was born John Keyes Byrne on November 9, 1926. While working in the civil service during the 1950s, he started using the pseudonym Hugh Leonard because he feared his employers would frown on his writing. He wrote numerous plays during his lifetime including Stephen D., The Poker Session, The Patrick Pearse Motel, and Da, which was on Broadway for almost two years. Leonard earned a Tony Award in 1977 for Da. He wrote two autobiographies, Home Before Night (1979) and Out after Dark (1989); adapted numerous classic novels for British television, including Nicholas Nickleby and Wuthering Heights, and wrote The Curmudgeon column for the Sunday Independent. He died after a long illness on February 12, 2009 at the age of 82.
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