‘Thorn Birds’ author Colleen McCullough dies aged 77

SYDNEY, Australia – Internationally acclaimed Australian author, Colleen McCullough, whose novel The Thorn Birds sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, died on Thursday aged 77.

The best-selling writer passed away in hospital on Norfolk Island, which lies in the remote waters off Australia’s eastern coast, her publisher said in a statement.

HarperCollins Australia publishing director Shona Martyn said McCullough had overcome a string of health and eyesight problems to continue writing through dictation. 

“Ever quick-witted and direct, we looked forward to her visits from Norfolk Island and the arrival of each new manuscript delivered in hard copy in custom-made maroon manuscript boxes inscribed with her name,” she said.

“The world is a less colourful place without Col.”

McCullough wrote 25 novels during her career, including her first book, Tim, which was made into a 1979 film starring Mel Gibson. The last, Bittersweet, was published in 2013. 

The Thorn Birds, her second book set in the Australian outback, became a high-rating television series starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward in 1983.

 

The paperback rights for the novel – published in 1977 – were auctioned for $1.9 million which was reported as a record at the time.

She also had a fruitful scientific career, establishing the neurophysiology department at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital and spending a decade as a researcher at Yale Medical School in the United States.

Tributes flowed in for one of Australia’s most internationally acclaimed writers, who is survived by her husband Ric Robinson.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott described her as “a unique Australian personality and Norfolk Island’s most famous resident”.

Fellow Australian author Tara Moss described McCullough as irreplaceable.

So sad to hear of the passing of Colleen McCullough. She was fierce, funny and so supportive of other writers. Irreplaceable. RIP Colleen.

— Tara Moss (@Tara_Moss) January 29, 2015

Random House Books tweeted:

Remembering Colleen. pic.twitter.com/hlfCgYjhUx

— Random House Books (@randomhouseau) January 30, 2015

It is very sad to lose Colleen McCullough. Her contribution to storytelling is the stuff of legend, she will be greatly missed.

— Random House Books (@randomhouseau) January 29, 2015

Penguin Books Australia also said it was “saddened” to hear of the “internationally acclaimed” author’s passing. 

Unhappy childhood

702 ABC Sydney presenter Richard Glover tweeted:

RIP Colleen McCullough. I can’t think of anyone who took such a miserable childhood and turned into a life of such luminous achievement.

— richard glover (@rglover702) January 29, 2015

McCullough was born in Wellington in New South Wales and most of her childhood was spent in Sydney. 

In interviews, she spoke of growing up in a family of warring parents, with a mother she once called “deliberately cruel” and an absent father who was found out after his death to have had “at least two other” wives.

In a happier memory, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation described her telling of having once gone to town on a coat-buying mission with money from her mother but opting to buy a typewriter instead.

“So I went to town with the five pounds to buy an overcoat, and I saw a Blue Bird portable typewriter for five pounds so I bought that instead,” she said. 

In 2004, she told a television interviewer she had already lost sight in one eye due to hemorrhagic macular degeneration, an irreversible and progressive illness that causes blindness. 

“Every book from now I have to think maybe the last one,” she said, saying learning she would lose her sight was more frightening than an earlier brush with cancer.

In 2006, McCullough was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia. – Rappler.com