Christopher Wood

Christopher Hovelle Wood (5 November 1935 – 9 May 2015) was an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for the Confessions series of novels and films which he wrote as Timothy Lea. Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, with Richard Maibaum) and Moonraker (1979).

Wood's many novels divide into four groups: semi-autobiographical literary fiction, historical fiction, adventure novels, and pseudonymous humorous erotica.

Christopher Wood was the son of Walter Leonard Wood and Audrey Maud (Hovell) Wood (born 1906). They were married in 1935. He was born in London borough of Lambeth. Wood had three children, one of whom is film producer and literary agent Caroline Wood.

Wood died at his apartment in southwest France on 9 May 2015, and was survived by his son and daughter. However, his death was not widely known until Sir Roger Moore paid tribute to him later that year on Twitter on 17 October.

Wood's parents sent their son to board at Edward VI Grammar School in Norwich to protect him from The Blitz. The Baedeker Blitz of April 1942 saw the adjacent medieval school bombed into rubble. Wood continued his education at King's College Junior School in London where he found himself at risk from "drunken, mentally disturbed, sexual predators" among the staff.