Alex (A Clockwork Orange) Picture Drama, and some consider his failure to receive a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards a major snub. In 2008, his performance was ranked #100 on "Premiere Magazine"s "100 Greatest Performances of All Time." Vanessa Claire Smith won "LA Weekly"s Leading Female Performance award for her gender-bending performance in the stage production of "A Clockwork Orange". Alex (A Clockwork Orange) Alex is a fictional character in Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange" and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of the same name, in which he is played by Malcolm McDowell. In the film, his surname is DeLarge, a reference
A Clockwork Orange (novel) Kubrick's opinion—as in the opinion of other readers, including the original American editor—the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book. "A Clockwork Orange" was written in Hove, then a senescent seaside town. Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had grown, including coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs. England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency. Burgess claimed that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried.