Graham Greene.

On October 2, 1904, Graham Greene was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, to Marion Raymond Greene and Charles Henry Greene, the headmaster of Berkhamsted School. His father’s position made him a target for torment from other pupils. He attended Berkhamsted School and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he published over 60 poems and short stories. After graduating, he converted to Roman Catholicism, explaining that he needed a religion to measure his evil against.

Greene’s first novel, The Man Within 1929, earned public and critical acclaim. His first major success was Stamboul Train 1934, a political thriller adapted into the film Orient Express 1934. He then wrote taut suspense dramas: This Gun for Hire 1942, The Ministry of Fear 1943, and The Confidential Agent 1945. The novel Brighton Rock 1938 became a milestone in British cinema; Greene co-wrote the 1947 screenplay with Terence Rattigan, and the stage play starred Richard Attenborough as the teenage gangster Pinkie.

Greene collaborated with director Carol Reed on three films: The Fallen Idol 1948, starring Ralph Richardson; The Third Man 1949, starring Orson Welles; and Our Man in Havana 1959. The Third Man is considered one of the peaks of British cinema; Greene developed the screenplay from a single sentence. He also worked as a film critic for The Spectator and the short-lived Night and Day, which folded after his review of Shirley Temple’s Wee Willie Winkie 1937 led to a libel suit. Greene wrote five plays for the stage: The Living Room 1953, The Potting Shed 1957, and The Complaisant Lover 1959. Several were adapted for television.

Greene married Vivien Greene on October 15, 1927. He had a string of extra-marital affairs and confessed to being a bad husband. He admitted to relations with more than 50 prostitutes in the 1920s and 1930s. His conversion to Roman Catholicism influenced his writing, though he remained rebellious toward religious authority. During World War II, Greene worked for MI-6 alongside double-agent Kim Philby. His friends included Evelyn Waugh, Noël Coward, and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos. Later in life he lived openly in Vevey, Switzerland, with his companion Yvonne Cloetta. He died there on April 3, 1991.

Greene’s work continues to influence filmmakers and actors. His novel The End of the Affair was adapted into a 1999 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. Travels with My Aunt 1972 was filmed with Maggie Smith and Alec McCowen. He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Shakespeare Prize. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. His cinematic approach to writing, which he described as capturing scenes with the moving eye of a cine-camera, became a hallmark of his work. His novels and screenplays endure.