Whittingham was born in Heaton, West Yorkshire, England, and educated at Charterhouse between 1924 and 1929. He then went up Lincoln College, Oxford to read law. During the early 1930s he was briefly engaged to the Wrigley heiress, Ada Elizabeth Offield. Between 1932 and 1937, Whittingham worked for a number of newspapers and in 1937 joined Alexander Korda as a contract screenwriter. During the Second World War, he was based on Iceland with an artillery regiment.
In 1948 he was a contracted screenwriter for Ealing Studios. He wrote the original story and screenplay for Cage of Gold, Pool of London, Hunted, The Divided Heart and the screenplay for I Believe in You, Mandy and West of Zanzibar.
British Lion
In 1956 he joined British Lion Films where he wrote The Birthday Present.
Whittingham collaborated with Ian Fleming and producer Kevin McClory on a screenplay for a James Bond film. However, when Fleming developed cold feet about McClory as producer of this first James Bond screenplay, he novelised the work into his ninth official novel, Thunderball; however, the novel only credited Fleming. McClory and Whittingham then sued Fleming, which led to a settlement in 1963 that gave McClory the film rights to the novel. During the lawsuit, Whittingham stepped down as 'co-plaintiff' and stood by McClory as 'principal witness', having previously signed away all his rights "of whatsoever nature" entirely when the screenplay was presumed finished. As a result of the settlement, future versions of the novel were forced to credit, based on the screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming. Two adaptations of Thunderball were subsequently made, the first being Thunderball in 1965 as part of the series of films from Eon Productions. The second adaptation was the film Never Say Never Again in 1983. Further adaptations had been planned at one point or another by McClory, but were scrapped due to lawsuits from MGM and United Artists. In the film Thunderball, credits are somewhat complex. Like a good number of James Bond films, it was promoted as being "Ian Fleming's". The screenplay was credited to Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins. However, it was also credited as having been "based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham," which also was credited as being "based on the original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming". Whittingham's sole original screenplay credit has been omitted from posters and other promotional materials.
Post Thunderball
Whittingham worked on screenplays about the lives of Ian Fleming and Oleg Penkovsky.
Personal life
In 1942 he married Margot Isobel Gough and they had a daughter, Suilven born 2 December 1943, and boy, Jonathan, born 5 June 1946. Sylvan became a singer and photographer, and married songwriter Barry Mason; they later divorced. In a 1986 court case, Sylvan Whittingham claimed that she had written half the lyrics of "Delilah" and several other songs. The case was settled out of court. In his autobiography, Over The Top and Back, Tom Jones attributes the co-writing of the lyrics to "Delilah" to Sylvan Whittingham.
Death
Whittingham died of a heart attack in Valletta, Malta, on 3 July 1972.
