Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author,
comic radio dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Hitchhiker's began on radio, and
developed into a "trilogy" of five books (which sold more than fifteen
million copies during his lifetime) as well as a television series, a comic
book series, a computer game, and a feature film that was completed after
Adams' death. The series has also been adapted for
live theatre using various scripts; the earliest such productions used
material newly written by Adams. He was known to some fans as Bop Ad
(after his illegible signature), or by his initials 'DNA'; he was born the
year before the elucidation of the structure of "the meaning of life " or
D.N.A. by Francis Crick and James Watson in Cambridge i.e. where he was
bornAdams died of a heart attack at the age of 49 on 11 May 2001, during
the rest period of his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito,
California. He had unknowingly suffered a gradual narrowing of the coronary
arteries, which led at that moment to a myocardial infarction and a fatal
cardiac arrhythmia. Adams had been due to deliver the commencement address
at Harvey Mudd College on 13 May. His funeral was held on 16 May 2001
in Santa Barbara, California. Several friends and people he had worked with
were in attendance. His ashes were placed in Highgate Cemetery in north
London in June 2002
