Bridget O'Connor

Bridget O'Connor was an English playwright and screenwriter with Irish roots who is most notable for co-penning the script for the acclaimed espionage film "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" with her husband, Peter Straughan. After working as a playwright, O'Connor ventured into screenwriting with Straughan for the 2006 coming-of-age movie "Sixty Six," featuring Helena Bonham Carter and Eddie Marsan. The next year, O'Connor and Straughan's script for "Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution," a quirky Marxist-themed comedy, was made into a film with Catherine Tate and Iain Glen. While Straughan stepped out on his own with screenwriting projects, including the eccentric productions "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" and "The Men Who Stare at Goats," O'Connor kept a lower profile in subsequent years. Following Straughan's work on the spy film "The Debt," O'Connor collaborated with him again on the feature adaptation of the John le Carré novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." After completing the script, however, O'Connor died of cancer, and the finished movie, starring Gary Oldman and a stellar supporting cast, was dedicated to her memory. Straughan went on to accept numerous prizes on behalf of himself and his late wife, including two BAFTA awards, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Outstanding British Film.