Ardrey, Robert

Robert Ardrey was born in Chicago Illinois on the 16 October 1908, to Robert Leslie Ardrey and Marie Haswell. He attended the University of Chicago between 1927 and 1930, where he studied in the Natural and Social Science department, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Thornton Wilder became a mentor to Ardrey at the university, and encouraged him to pursue writing.

Robert Ardrey began his professional writing career as a playwright, writing such plays as Star-Spangled (1936), Casey Jones (1938), Thunder Rock (1939) and Jeb (1946). In 1940 he wrote his first screenplay, They Knew What They Wanted, and subsequently wrote a number of films including: The Green Years (1946); The Three Musketeers (1948); Madame Bovary (1949) and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). In 1966 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for Khartoum. He also wrote two novels: World’s Beginning (1944); and Brotherhood of Fear (1952).

From the beginning of the 1960s, Ardrey wrote a series of nonfiction books in the field of paleoanthropology in which he argued that aggression was a key feature of man’s evolution. His books, which were both popular and controversial, included: African Genesis (1961); The Territorial Imperative (1966); The Social Contract (1970); and The Hunting Hypothesis (1976).

Throughout his life, Ardrey received a number of awards including: the Sergel Drama Prize in 1935; a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937; The Sidney Howard Memorial Prize in 1940; and a Wilkie Brothers grant for anthropology in 1963.

Robert Ardrey was married to Helen Johnson between 1938 and 1960, and they had two sons, Ross and Daniel. In 1960 he married the South African stage actress Berdine Grunewald, who later illustrated his books.

From the guide to the Ardrey, Robert. Papers, 1928-1974, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)

Biography

Robert Ardrey was born October 16, 1908 in Chicago; studied natural and social sciences at University of Chicago and lectured on anthropology for two years, but later found himself more interested in drama, where he was influenced by Thornton Wilder; his first plays had brief runs, but led to his becoming a Hollywood screenwriter, 1938; wrote film scripts, novels, and plays, including Thunder Rock, which was successful in London and filmed in Hollywood; returned to the study of anthropology in 1955, and later produced four works: African Genesis (1961), The Territorial Imperative (1966), The Social Contract (1970), and The Hunting Hypothesis (1976) all arguing that man was innately aggressive creature; continued to write screenplays, including Khartoum ; finished autobiography shortly before his death in Kalk Bay, South Africa in 1980.

From the guide to the Robert Ardrey Papers, 1935-1960, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)