Education
Whitemore studied for the stage at London"s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he is now a Member of the Council.
Whitemore studied for the stage at London"s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he is now a Member of the Council.
His work for American television includes Concealed Enemies, about the Alger Hiss case, and The Gathering Storm (2002), which focused on a troubled period in the marriage of Clementine and Winston Churchill just prior to World World War World War II He also was nominated for his adaptation of the Carl Bernstein/Bob Woodward book about President Nixon, The Final Days. His most recent work for television was My House in Umbria (2003), an adaptation of the novella by William Trevor starring Maggie Smith. He also wrote the episode, "Horrible Conspiracies", for the British Broadcasting Corporation series Elizabeth R (1971).
Whitemore"s film credits include: Manitoba at the Top (1973), All Creatures Great and Small (1975), The Blue Bird (1976), The Return of the Soldier (1982), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), and Utz (1992).
The plots of Whitemore"s plays frequently focus on historical figures. Stevie (1977) centred on the life of English poet and novelist Stevie Smith and Pack of Lies (1983) covered events leading up to the arrest of the Krogers, two Americans spying for the Russians, in London in 1961.
Whitemore"s best known work taking the form of a staged biography is Breaking the Code (1986) which is centered on Alan Turing, who was responsible for cracking the German Enigma code during World World War II and resisted an adherence to the English code of sexual discretion with his homosexuality, for which he was charged with gross indecency. A television adaptation was broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1996.
An adaptation by Whitemore of the Luigi Pirandello play As You Desire Maine was staged at London"s Playhouse Theatre in 2005 with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead.
Whitemore is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He began his writing career in British television with both original television plays and adaptations of classic works by Charles Dickens, W. Somerset Maugham, Daphne du Maurier, and Charlotte Brontë, among others, and has won a Writers" Guild of Great Britain award twice. He won an Emmy Award for each script.
