A native of the town of Larkhall in South Lanarkshire, less than 30 km from Glasgow, David Dalrymple Butler was born into a well-educated family, with his parents working as teachers. At the age of 18, as World War II came to an end, he enrolled at Scotland's oldest institution of higher learning, University of St Andrews, but ultimately abandoned his studies before attaining a degree, upon becoming interested in acting with the university drama society. He subsequently trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and began his performing career in West End revues. In 1956, at the age of 29, he played a prison officer in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop production of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow.

In 1959 he married actress Norma Ronald and, by the early 1960s, was supplementing his acting career with scriptwriting. Following a 1966 divorce, his 1969 marriage to Mary McPhail lasted for the remainder of his life and produced two daughters. By 1971 he had mostly given up acting and began to devote all of his energies to turning out teleplays. One of his first successes in the historical genre was 1972's The Strauss Family followed by many other productions, including The Duchess of Duke Street in 1976—77, 1978's Disraeli, starring Ian McShane and his 1986 Emmy-winning Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy with Nicol Williamson in the title role.

Circumstances also permitted an occasional return to acting, as in his own teleplays of the 1974—78 TV prison series Within These Walls, in some episodes of which he played the penal institution chaplain, Rev. Henry Prentice. During this time, he also received the honor of being nominated for American cinema's Academy Award for his historical screenplay of 1976's Voyage of the Damned, depicting the 1939 attempt by 937 Jews to escape the looming Holocaust via a ship traveling from Hitler's Germany to Havana, but denied permission to disembark in Cuba or in the United States.

David Butler died in London at the age of 78.

• Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for: Voyage of the Damned (1976)
• Golden Globe nomination for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture for: Voyage of the Damned (1976)
• Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Writing in a Miniseries or a Special for: Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy (1986)

Notes

Sources

• Hayward, Anthony. "David Butler...Writer of TV historical dramas" (The Independent, 8 June 2006)
• Newley, Patrick. "David Butler" (The Stage, 26 June 2006)