Born in 1940, Ray Connolly was brought up in Lancashire and attended the London School of Economics, where he read social anthropology. As a journalist, he has written for the London Evening Standard, the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer.
He has written several novels, including Sunday Morning and Shadows on a Wall, the movies That'll Be the Day and Stardust, the television series Lytton's Diary and Perfect Scoundrels, and biographies of Elvis Presley and John Lennon. He also worked with record producer Sir George Martin on the television series The Rhythm of Life, and has written TV plays, radio plays, short stories and the novella Sorry, Boys, You Failed the Audition.