LOS ANGELES (AP) — Douglas Adams, whose cult science fiction comedy "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" drew millions of fans and spawned a mini-industry, has died at age 49.
The British-born Adams died Friday of an apparent heart attack in Santa Barbara, Calif., a family friend, Elizabeth Gibson, said Saturday. She said Adams collapsed while working out at a gym.
"He was not ill," Gibson said. "This was completely unexpected."
The "Hitchhiker's Guide," which began as a British Broadcasting Corp. radio series in 1978, is a satirical adventure about a group of interplanetary travelers; it opens with the Earth being destroyed to make way for an intergalactic highway.
It was turned into a book, which sold 14 million copies around the world, and later into a television series.