Everything about James Clavell totally explained
James Clavell, born
Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (
10 October,
1924 –
7 September,
1994) was a British
novelist,
screenwriter,
director and
World War II veteran and
POW. Clavell is best known for his epic
Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as
The Great Escape and
To Sir, with Love.
Early life and World War II
Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Clavell, a British
Royal Navy officer who was stationed in
Australia on secondment from the
Royal Navy to the
Royal Australian Navy. In 1940, when Clavell finished his secondary schooling at
Portsmouth Grammar School, he joined the
Royal Artillery to follow his family tradition.
Following the outbreak of
World War II, at the age of 16 he joined the
British Royal Artillery in 1940, and was sent to
Malaya to fight the
Japanese. Wounded by machine gun fire, he was eventually captured and sent to a Japanese prisoner of war camp on
Java. Later he was transferred to
Changi Prison in
Singapore.
Clavell suffered greatly at the hands of his Japanese captors. Changi was notorious for its poor living conditions. According to the introduction to King Rat, written by Clavell's daughter Michaela, over 90% of the prisoners who entered Changi never walked out. Clavell was reportedly saved, along with an entire battalion, by an American prisoner of war who later became the model for "The King" in Clavell's
King Rat.
By 1946, Clavell had risen to the rank of Captain, but a motorcycle accident ended his military career. He enrolled at the
University of Birmingham, where he met April Stride, an actress, whom he married in 1951.
Peter Marlowe
Peter Marlowe is a character in the Clavell novels
King Rat and
Noble House, although he's also mentioned once as a friend of Andrew Gavallan, in the novel
Whirlwind. Featured much more prominently in
King Rat, he's an
English FEPOW in
Changi prison during
World War II. In
Noble House, set two decades later, he's a novelist researching a book about
Hong Kong. He is a thinly veiled fictionalization of Clavell placed inside his own works. Ancestors of the character Peter Marlowe are also mentioned in other Clavell novels. In addition Peter Marlowe was said to be very important to Clavell as a character due to reports that Clavell suffered great mental anguish after his stay in Changi prison and wrote
King Rat to deal with his experiences and memories of the time.
Film industry
In 1953, Clavell and his wife emigrated to the United States and settled down in
Hollywood. Clavell scripted the grisly science-fiction horror film
The Fly and wrote a war film,
Five Gates to Hell. Clavell won a
Writers Guild Best Screenplay Award for the 1963 film
The Great Escape. He also wrote, directed and produced a 1967 box office hit,
To Sir With Love, starring
Sidney Poitier.
Clavell's daughter
Michaela appeared briefly as
Penelope Smallbone,
Moneypenny's successor, in the
James Bond 007 movie
Octopussy. The character, however, didn't catch on and was dropped after that single picture.
Films
Tai-Pan and
King Rat have both been adapted as feature films; however Clavell wasn't directly involved in their writing.
Novelist
Clavell's first novel,
King Rat, was a semi-fictional account of his prison experiences at
Changi. When the book was published in 1962, it became an immediate best-seller and three years later, it was adapted for film. His next novel,
Tai-Pan, was a fictional account of
Jardine-Matheson's rise to prominence in Hong Kong, as told through who was to become Clavell's heroic archetype,
Dirk Struan.
Struan's descendants would inhabit almost all of his forthcoming books.
This was followed by
Shogun in 1975, the story of an English navigator set in 1600s
Japan. When the story was made into a TV series in 1980, produced by Clavell, it became the second highest rated mini-series in history with an audience of over 120 million. In 1981, Clavell published his fourth novel,
Noble House, which became a number one best seller during that year and was also made into a miniseries. Following the success of Noble House, Clavell wrote
Whirlwind (1986) and
Gai-Jin (1993) along with
The Children's Story (1981) and
Thrump-o-moto (1985).
Novels
The Asian Saga consisting of six novels:
King Rat (1962): Set in a Japanese POW camp, 1945
Tai-Pan (1966): Set in Hong Kong, 1841
Shogun (1975): Set in feudal Japan, 1600
Noble House (1981): Set in Hong Kong, 1963
Whirlwind (1986): Set in Iran, 1979
Gai-Jin (1993): Set in Japan, 1862
Several of Clavell's books have been adapted as films or miniseries;Shogun was also adapted into a computer Interactive Fiction game.
Other books include:
The Children's Story (1980)
The Art of War a translation of Sun Tzu's famous book (1983)
Thrump-O-Moto Illustrated by George Sharp (1986)
Escape (1994) - shorter novel adapted from Whirlwind
Politics and later life
Politically, Clavell was said to have been an ardent individualist, anti-fascist and proponent of laissez-faire capitalism, as many of his books' heroes exemplify.
Clavell admired Ayn Rand, founder of the Objectivist school of philosophy, and sent Ayn Rand a copy of Noble House in 1981 with the following inscription - "This is for Ayn Rand – one of the real, true talents on this earth for which many, many thanks. James C, New York, 2 Sept 81."
In 1963, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
He died of a stroke while suffering from cancer in Switzerland in 1994, one month before his 70th birthday.
Following generous sponsorship by his widow, the library and archive of the Royal Artillery Museum at Woolwich Arsenal in London has been renamed the James Clavell library in his honour (External Link
).
Further Information
Get more info on 'James Clavell'.
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