Colleen McCullough facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Colleen McCullough
Born	(1937-06-01)1 June 1937 Wellington, New South Wales, Australia
Died	29 January 2015(2015-01-29) (aged 77) Norfolk Island, Australia
Occupation	Novelist, neuroscientist
Genre	Fiction, fantasy, drama
Spouse	Cedric Newton Ion-Robinson

Colleen McCullough-Robinson, AO, (1 June 1937 – 29 January 2015) was an Australian author. She was famous world-wide.

Life

McCullough was born in 1937. Her parents were James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved many times. She read a lot. She attended Holy Cross College.

McCullough earned a living as a teacher, librarian, and journalist. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis. She was told not to be a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked in Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

In 1963, McCullough moved to the United Kingdom for four years. At Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University. He offered her a research associate job at Yale. McCullough spent ten years from April 1967 to 1976 researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It was while at Yale that she wrote her first two books.

Because these books were successful, McCullough stopped being a doctor. In the late 1970s, she lived in London and Connecticut, USA. She finally picked Norfolk Island in the Pacific. There she met her husband, Ric Robinson (then 33 years old). They married on 13 April 1983 (she was 46 years old).

In 1984 a portrait of McCullough, painted by Wesley Walters, was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. The prize is for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics".

McCullough did a lot of historical research for the novels on ancient Rome. This led to her getting a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University in 1993.

McCullough was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. She was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She now lives in Sydney.

Some people did not like McCullough's 2008 novel The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett. She changed some of the characters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

McCullough died on 29 January 2015 at the age of 77 on Norfolk Island.

Writing history

Novels

• Tim (1974). Made into a film in 1979
• The Thorn Birds (1977)
• An Indecent Obsession (1981)
• A Creed for the Third Millennium (1985)
• The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987)
• The Song of Troy (1998)
• Morgan's Run (2000)
• The Touch (2003)
• Angel Puss (2004)
• On, Off (2006)
• The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (2008)
• "Too Many Murders" (2010)

Biography

• The Courage and the Will: The Life of Roden Cutler VC (1999)

Masters of Rome Series

1. The First Man in Rome (1990)
2. The Grass Crown (1991)
3. Fortune's Favorites (1993)
4. Caesar's Women (1996)
5. Caesar (1997)
6. The October Horse (2002)
7. Antony and Cleopatra (2007)

Carmine Delmonico series

1. On, Off (2006)
2. Too Many Murders (December 2009)
3. Naked Cruelty (2010)

Screen adaptations

• Tim - made into a movie in 1979 starring Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie
• The Thorn Birds - made into a TV miniseries in 1983 starring Richard Chamberlain
• An Indecent Obsession - made into a movie in 1985 starring Gary Sweet
• The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years - made into a TV miniseries in 1996 starring Richard Chamberlain.
• Mary & Tim - a 1996 adaptation of the novel Tim

Honours

In 1984, a portrait of McCullough, painted by Wesley Walters, was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. The prize is awarded for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics". The depth of historical research for the novels on ancient Rome led to her being awarded a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University in 1993.

She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia on 12 June 2006, "[f]or service to the arts as an author and to the community through roles supporting national and international educational programs, medico-scientific disciplines and charitable organisations and causes".

Images for kids

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  Close-up of her headstone in Emily Bay Cemetery, Norfolk Island, 2015

See also

In Spanish: Colleen McCullough para niños