Troy Kennedy Martin

Troy Kennedy Martin (15 February 1932 – 15 September 2009) was a Scottish-born film and television screenwriter best known for creating the long running BBC TV police series Z Cars, and for the award-winning 1985 anti-nuclear drama Edge of Darkness. Born in Glasgow, he was educated at Finchley Catholic Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. Kennedy Martin's best-known work for the cinema was the screenplay for the original version of The Ita... more

Troy Kennedy Martin (15 February 1932 – 15 September 2009) was a Scottish-born film and television screenwriter best known for creating the long running BBC TV police series Z Cars, and for the award-winning 1985 anti-nuclear drama Edge of Darkness. Born in Glasgow, he was educated at Finchley Catholic Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. Kennedy Martin's best-known work for the cinema was the screenplay for the original version of The Italian Job. The BFI Screenonline entry contradicts Kennedy Martin's assertion, made during the Magnox: The Secrets Of Edge Of Darkness documentary (part of the 2003 Edge Of Darkness DVD release), that the idea for the series came about during the Thatcher/Reagan years of the early 1980s. The BFI reviewer claims that work began on the serial earlier. This not only contradicts Troy Kennedy Martin, but seems to imply that the work was in progress some years before the events which inspired it. He began writing for BBC Television in 1958, beginning... less