HAVING been a refugee from Nazi Germany, Harvey Unna worked for the BBC on German broadcasts during the war, was a translator for Sir Hartley Shawcross at the Nuremburg war crimes trials, and created one of Britain’s most successful literary agencies.
He was a very correct and private man who only reluctantly divulged details of his life. He was born in Hamburg to a middle-class Jewish family, educated at two grammar schools and studied law at the universities of Freiburg, Berlin and Hamburg. In 1932 he became a doctor of jurisprudence with a thesis on Demand in Insurance Law, which is even now considered a standard work. His aim was to become a judge and had he succeeded he would have been the youngest one in Germany. Remarkably, when he reached retirement age he received from the West German Government the pension of a High Court judge in reparation. In 1933, however, he was dismissed from the German Civil Service on racial grounds. He fled to Britain and worked for his uncle in Erith, Kent, in the scrap- metal business. When war broke out he worked for the BBC at Caversham, near Reading, doing secret work on broadcasts to and from Germany.
At the end of the war he became a British subject and returned to Germany as head translator for Shawcross, the principal British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. He served in that capacity in Hamburg, the town of his birth, at the trial of von Manstein.
Back in Britain, he indulged his love of music and theatre by directing plays and opera at the Questors and John Lewis Operatic Society. He adapted The Little World of Don Camillo for radio, and wrote an original radio play. This thriller was repeated on BBC and he also managed to sell it abroad — and this success spurred him into starting a literary agency, particularly for those writing for radio.
He worked in association with Nina Froud, a noted linguist, translator and author, selling clients’ work first to the BBC and then abroad. There was no shortage of writing talent, which had been bottled up during the war years, and a growing demand for it worldwide. By taking an international approach and setting up a network of agents, the pair did much to boost their and their clients’ fortunes. Correct, buttoned-up Harvey, with his deep sense of right and wrong, became a father-figure to many writers as he increased their earnings, defended their copyrights and tracked down their royalties across the world.
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The agency flourished with the advent of BBC TV and was further boosted by the creation of ITV. It was by then representing writers in all fields.
Unna had spectacular success with the authors Michael Bond (creator of Paddington Bear), and Maisie Mosco; on radio and television with the writers Francis Durbrige, Denis Constanduros, Philip Levene (The Avengers), Hugh Leonard, Elaine Morgan, Stan Barstow, Jack Pulman, Cyril Abraham, Antony Steven, Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, David Turner, Don Webb, Alan Bleasdale and Andrew Davies, who between them shared more than 100 series and serials.
In theatre and film he represented Ted Willis, Barrie Keeffe, Willis Hall, Henry Livings and Terence Frisby and many others. Indeed, a fair proportion of all the drama, comedy, series and serials that the nation watched or listened to from the Second World War onwards was written by Unna’s clients. On the proceeds he bought land in Highgate, overlooking Hampstead Heath, on which he built a superb modern house, designed mostly by himself, with the bedrooms downstairs and the living rooms above. Here he and Judy Aickin, whom he had married in 1941, spent the rest of their lives.
In 1975 Stephen Durbridge joined the agency as Harvey’s partner. They remained partners until Unna’s retirement in 1986, when Durbridge was joined by several others to form what is now The Agency (a name that Unna deplored), one of the most respected literary agencies in the country.
Harvey Unna’s wife died in 1993. There were no children.
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Harvey Unna, literary agent, was born on February 20, 1911. He died on July 8, 2003, aged 92.