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James Clavell
Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994), known as James Clavell, was a British and American writer, filmmaker and a British Army officer during the Second World War. He is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television and film adaptations.
Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958), based on the short story by George Langelaan, and The Great Escape (1963), based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill. He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love, for which he also wrote the script.
During his war service, Clavell was a prisoner-of-war to the Imperial Japan at Changi Prison, which formed the basis of his semi-autobiographical novel King Rat (1962) and its 1965 film adaptation.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Charles Clavell (d. 23 June 1945), a Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia with the Royal Australian Navy from 1920 to 1922. (Richard Clavell's father was Major R.K. Clavell.) Richard Clavell was posted back to England when James was nine months old. Clavell was educated at The Portsmouth Grammar School.
In 1940, Clavell joined the Royal Artillery, and received an emergency Regular Army commission as a second lieutenant on 10 May 1941. Though trained for desert warfare, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 he was sent to Singapore to fight the Japanese. The ship taking his unit was sunk en route to Singapore, and the survivors were picked up by a Dutch boat fleeing to India. The commander, described by Clavell years later as a "total twit", insisted that they be dropped off at the nearest port to fight the war despite having no weapons.
Shot in the face, he was captured in Java in 1942 and sent to a local Japanese prisoner of war camp. Later, he was transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore.
In 1981, Clavell recounted:
Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life—the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving, the most important course of all.
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James Clavell
Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell (10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994), known as James Clavell, was a British and American writer, filmmaker and a British Army officer during the Second World War. He is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television and film adaptations.
Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958), based on the short story by George Langelaan, and The Great Escape (1963), based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill. He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love, for which he also wrote the script.
During his war service, Clavell was a prisoner-of-war to the Imperial Japan at Changi Prison, which formed the basis of his semi-autobiographical novel King Rat (1962) and its 1965 film adaptation.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Charles Clavell (d. 23 June 1945), a Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia with the Royal Australian Navy from 1920 to 1922. (Richard Clavell's father was Major R.K. Clavell.) Richard Clavell was posted back to England when James was nine months old. Clavell was educated at The Portsmouth Grammar School.
In 1940, Clavell joined the Royal Artillery, and received an emergency Regular Army commission as a second lieutenant on 10 May 1941. Though trained for desert warfare, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 he was sent to Singapore to fight the Japanese. The ship taking his unit was sunk en route to Singapore, and the survivors were picked up by a Dutch boat fleeing to India. The commander, described by Clavell years later as a "total twit", insisted that they be dropped off at the nearest port to fight the war despite having no weapons.
Shot in the face, he was captured in Java in 1942 and sent to a local Japanese prisoner of war camp. Later, he was transferred to Changi Prison in Singapore.
In 1981, Clavell recounted:
Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life—the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving, the most important course of all.