Gavin Lambert always had a kind word for his West Hollywood neighbors as he strolled up Laurel Avenue for his morning constitutional. Little betrayed his stash of Hollywood stories, insights, and secrets he never promised not to tell. And yet something about his gait and the thick-thread cardigan jacket buttoned at the waist gave him the air of lounging, cocktail glass deftly raised, at a Noel Coward soiree, spying all for future artistic reflection. Sadly, on July 17, just six days shy of his 81st birthday, screenwriter, novelist, and film historian Gavin Lambert died, attended in his last weeks by his longtime friend and neighbor, writer Mart Crowley.

Born on July 23, 1924, in Sussex, England, Lambert received a proper education before demonstrating a flair for the dramatic, leaving Oxford University after only a year upon learning that medieval English was required for a degree.

Lambert "never made any secret" about being gay "but was never militant -- unless it was 'militant' to inform the tribunal that summoned" him for military duty in 1942 that he was a homosexual, he wrote later. He was rejected.

He took to writing film criticism and short stories, founding in 1948 an important film journal, Sequence, with budding director Lindsay Anderson with whom he would have a long personal and professional relationship. He championed neglected films by directors such as Nicholas Ray and Max Ophuls. Two years later he moved to Sight and Sound, which he edited for six years.

During this time he also wrote and directed Another Sky, which was admired by Ray and Luis Bunuel. With director Tony Richardson and others, Lambert launched the Free Cinema movement that called for more social realism and elevated England's "angry young men" playwrights to film. It also pre-figured the French New Wave of films.

In the late 1950's Lambert moved to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting and become Ray's personal assistant, lover, and sometimes writer. He became a U.S. citizen in 1964.

Lambert's adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers with T. E. B. Clarke in 1960 earned an Oscar and Writers Guild of America (WGA) nomination. Tennessee Williams subsequently asked Lambert to adapt The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. His 1977 adaptation (with Lewis John Carlino) of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden also garnered Oscar and WGA nods.

He also wrote novels, including The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life, Inside Daisy Clover (which he adapted for the screen for Natalie Wood), A Case for the Angels, The Goodbye People and Running Time.

Lambert also wrote biographies of Russian silent film star Alla Nazimova, Norma Shearer, Natalie Wood, screenwriter Ivan Moffat, and Anderson in Mainly About Lindsay Anderson, which meshed biography with memoir. On Cukor was a long interview with director George Cukor.

Cukor, Wood, Williams, Crowley, actresses Vivien Leigh and Leslie Caron, and artist David Hockney were among those with whom Lambert socialized. From 1973 to 1990, he also spent half of each year with writer and composer Paul Bowles in Tangier.

In 1981, according to a WGA notation, "at Tennessee Williams' request, Lambert helped him complete his last major play, Masks Outrageous. For many complicated reasons -- including Tennessee's death only 18 months later in unfashionable neglect, the play's strong gay content, and all kinds of legal tangles with Williams' various estates -- the play sat on the shelf until this year. It has now found producers and is scheduled to open on Broadway in March 2006. The credits will read Masks Outrageous, a play by Tennessee WIlliams; Revised by Gavin Lambert."

Last April, Lambert joined Gore Vidal in a salute to Greta Garbo. But his last known public appearance was at program sponsored by the WGA's Gay & Lesbian Writers Committee last June 9. He appeared with William Bast, Ann L. Gibbs, Joel Kimmel, and Leonora Thuna on a panel entitled "Those Were The Gays" about writing for film and television before the modern gay rights movement.

"Mr. Lambert was much older than the others, and with his very gentlemanly countenance, seemed to be more introspective," said IN Los Angeles Senior Editor Jeremy Kinser. "But it became evident very quickly that he was in charge. In a posh English accent, he answered each question authoritatively, eloquently, with wit and insight -- a marvelous raconteur. A young man behind me said, 'That English guy rocks.'"

"I spoke to Mr. Lambert at the reception," Kinser said, "and before I could introduce myself, he asked if we'd met before. We had very briefly -- about five years ago at LACMA. I'd interviewed him for The Advocate for an obit on Quentin Crisp. I told him how much I admired his writing and that I wanted to interview him for IN. Unfortunately, he went into the hospital shortly thereafter. His death robs us of one of the last links to the classic age of Hollywood, and one its great writers and storytellers."

"His observations on Hollywood life and Hollywood people were just incredible," writer Dominick Dunne told the Los Angeles Times.

Lambert "had a real understanding of Hollywood's legacy and how Hollywood has worked," said openly gay Times film writer Kevin Thomas.

"I thought he was extraordinary," said Nicolas Roeg who directed Lambert's 1989 TV adaptation of Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon.

Film critic David Ehrenstein blogs (http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com) that Lambert was "a font of detailed information" and proved "most generous" and "invaluable" in helping Ehrenstein write Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-2000.

"He was elegant, generous, exact, and one of the most droll wits I have ever met in my life," Crowley told IN Los Angeles. "He was a true intellectual but he was very quiet about it. He could talk and be with anybody and he never flaunted his superior intellect."

Lambert died of pulmonary fibrosis. He is survived by his brother, Denys M. Lambert, and many friends, admirers, and sorrowful neighbors. His ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

-- Karen Ocamb