the cancellation of Silence, Fox offered Clayton the chance to film a new science fiction script co-credited to David Giler and Dan O'Bannon, but Clayton turned down the film (Alien), and it was ultimately given to Ridley Scott who, like Sydney Pollack before him, scored a career-making hit. A few months later, Clayton suffered a major stroke which robbed him of the ability to speak. He was helped to recover by his wife Haya, and a group of close friends, but he later revealed that he deliberately kept his condition secret because he feared he might not get work again if his affliction became known. He did not commit to another assignment for five years. The Bourne Identity (1983) – after completing Something Wicked This Way Comes, Clayton was hired to direct a film adaptation of Robert Ludlum's best-selling espionage thriller, which was to have starred Burt Reynolds as Jason Bourne. Clayton had met Reynolds several years earlier, while working with Reynolds' then partner Sally Field on another unrealised project, and Clayton felt that Reynolds was a star whose acting potential had not been fully explored. The production was repeatedly postponed due to location issues and problems with Reynolds' schedule, and it went into "development hell." Clayton was not involved in the 1988 telefilm version or the successful 2002 theatrical film with Matt Damon (which bore little resemblance to Ludlum's novel). Personal life When asked his religion, he replied: "ex-Catholic". Clayton was married three times, his first was to actress Christine Norden in 1947, but they divorced in 1953; the same year he married again to French actress Katherine Kath, but this was short-lived. His third marriage, in 1984, was to the Israeli actress Haya Harareet, and this lasted until his death. Clayton died in hospital in Slough, England from a heart attack, following a short illness, on 25 February 1995. On the first anniversary of Clayton's death, BAFTA held a ceremony to celebrate his life and career, which featured a screening of The Bespoke Overcoat and a solo flute performance from Delerue's score for Something Wicked This Way Comes, which was a favourite of Clayton's wife Haya. Tributes were delivered by Sir John Woolf, Harold Pinter, Karel Reisz, Freddie Francis, Clayton's editor Terry Rawlings, his agent Robert Shapiro, and actors Sam Waterston and Scott Wilson, with whom he had worked on The Great Gatsby. In his professional tribute to