Early life He was born in
Rothesay,
Isle of Bute, and educated in Scotland, at
Finchley Catholic Grammar School and
Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied history and political science. He had a younger brother
Ian, who is also a television writer best known for creating
The Sweeney.
1960s He began writing for
BBC Television in 1958, beginning with the play
Incident at Echo Six, and he wrote four further plays for the BBC over the following three years, before in 1961 creating his first series,
Storyboard, a six-part anthology series that consisted both of original scripts and adaptations. The same year, he wrote the police drama
The Interrogator. He wrote an important manifesto about new television drama in 1964, calling for a more mobile style of camera work and less emphasis on dialogue. In 1962, Martin co-created the drama series
Z-Cars. Set in "Newtown", based on
Kirkby near Liverpool,
Z-Cars was revolutionary in that it depicted a hard-edged, grittier and much more realistic vision of the police force than had been seen on British television – as a result, it was initially very unpopular with the real police. Although he left the programme after the first two series, the series ran until 1978, and he returned to write the final episode. In 1965, Martin scripted a television adaptation of
Frederik Pohl's short story
The Midas Plague, which was shown as an episode for the first series of
Out of the Unknown, a science-fiction anthology series shown on
BBC2. One of the more light-hearted stories of the otherwise dark and dramatic show, it is one of only 20 (and a half) episodes of the original 48 known to have survived
destruction, and is available on DVD.
1970s Over the following decade he contributed to various television programmes, and made his first foray into feature films when he wrote
The Italian Job, which was released in 1969 and starred
Noël Coward and
Michael Caine. The following year he wrote ''
Kelly's Heroes, and he scripted two more films during the 1970s – The Jerusalem File (1971) and Sweeney 2'' (1978).
Sweeney 2 was the second cinematic spin-off from the television series
The Sweeney, which had been created by his brother
Ian Kennedy Martin, and for which he had written several episodes. He is less well known for writing a little-seen television sitcom based in the British Civil Service,
If It Moves, File It (1970), featuring amongst others
John Bird, who later co-starred in the satirical
Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
1980s In the early 1980s he was no less successful, with two highly popular series on different networks in 1983.
The Old Men at the Zoo was an adaptation of the novel by
Angus Wilson and screened on
BBC One; the second was the hugely popular
Reilly, Ace of Spies on
ITV, based on the book by
Robin Bruce Lockhart and starring
Sam Neill. Greatly influenced by the political landscape of the early 1980s, he had drafted a script for a
political thriller-cum-
science fiction drama serial entitled
Magnox, which became
Edge of Darkness. He was interviewed about the genesis of the series for
Magnox: The Secrets of Edge of Darkness documentary, an extra on the show's 2003 DVD release: The concept attracted little interest from television executives until incoming
BBC Head of Drama Series & Serials
Jonathan Powell picked it up in 1983, assigning experienced producer
Michael Wearing to the project.
Edge of Darkness was eventually screened on
BBC2 in late 1985. Although Kennedy Martin had many creative differences with director
Martin Campbell and star
Bob Peck (who is reported to have vetoed the scripted ending with the remark "I'm not turning into a fucking tree!"), the drama was a resounding success, picking up several awards and being remembered as one of the best British television drama productions of the 1980s. Following
Edge of Darkness he wrote another feature film screenplay,
Red Heat (1988, co-written with director Walter Hill), which starred
Arnold Schwarzenegger and
James Belushi.
1990s Kennedy Martin did not return to television scriptwriting until the one-off
BBC Two drama
Hostile Waters in 1997. Other later work included
Bravo Two Zero for
BBC One in 1999, co-written with
Andy McNab and starring
Sean Bean.
Death He died of
lung cancer on 15 September 2009 aged 77, in
Ditchling, East Sussex. ==Selected filmography==