James Clavell

James Clavell was born on October 10, 1924 in Sydney, Australia. His father was a British officer in the Royal Navy, but was sent to the Australian Royal Navy for some time. Clavell had a very interesting life to say the least. He started out his adult life by taking a position in the Royal Artillery. During this time he was sent to fight the Japanese in World War II. In the heat of combat he was shot by machine-gun fire and was captured by the Japanese. Clavell was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp and later transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore. He was severely abused by his captors while in the camp, and writes about it in several of his novels, and screenplays, that he would later write. Luckily, Clavell was one of the few survivors of the prisoner-of-war camp and continued on in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the station of Captain. Shortly after this time, his military career ended due to a motorcycle accident.

After the military, Clavell enrolled at the University of Birmingham. It was here that he started to work on his writing, and it was also here that he met his future bride, Apri Stride, and actress.

During the year 1953 Clavell and his wife moved to Hollywood, California. Here he would write several novels, children’s books, and most notably screenplays. Clavell’s first work was the writing for the movie, The Fly. In 1965 he wrote the novel, King Rat, which was received with much success. This novel was based on his time in the prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore.