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Pierre Boulle
Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French author. He is best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963), that were both made into award-winning films.
Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Southeast Asia, when he was captured and imprisoned for two years. These experiences inspired The Bridge over the River Kwai, about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film, named The Bridge on the River Kwai, by David Lean won seven Academy Awards (including Best Adapted Screenplay), and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two actual screenwriters had been blacklisted.
His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes, in which intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, developed into a media franchise spanning over 55 years that includes ten films, two television series, comic books and popular themed merchandise.
Born in Avignon, France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as a Catholic, although later in life he became an agnostic.[citation needed] He studied at the prestigious École supérieure d'électricité (Supélec) where he received an degree in engineering in 1933. From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician at SOCFIN rubber plantations in Malaya. Boulle met a Frenchwoman at a dinner held at his supervisor's residence, The White Palace, who was separated from her husband. She was soon to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in French Indochina. During World War II she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship.[citation needed]
At the outbreak of World War II, Boulle enlisted with the French army in Indochina. After German troops occupied France, he became a supporter of Charles de Gaulle and joined the Free French Mission in Singapore. Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and was sent on a mission to help resistance movements in China, Burma, and French Indochina. In 1943, he was captured by Vichy France loyalists on the Mekong River. Two years later, Boulle managed to escape from Saigon.
Boulle was later made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. He described his war experiences in the non-fiction My Own River Kwai. After the war he kept in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life.
After the war, Boulle returned to work for a while in the plantations of SOCFIN in Malaya, in 1949 he moved back to Paris and began to write, drawing from his memories of Malaya and Indochina. While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in a hotel until his recently widowed sister, Madeleine Perrusset, allowed him to move into her large apartment. She had a daughter, Françoise, whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized.
While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952; The Bridge over the River Kwai), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning the French "Prix Sainte-Beuve". The book was a semi-fictional story based on the real plight of Allied POWs forced to build a 415 km (258 mi) railway that passed over the bridge, and which became known as the "Death Railway". 16,000 prisoners and 100,000 Asian conscripts died during construction of the line.[citation needed] His character of Lt-Col. Nicholson was not based on the real Allied senior officer at the Kwai bridges, Philip Toosey, but was reportedly an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. Both the book and film outraged former prisoners because Toosey did not collaborate with the enemy, unlike the fictional Colonel Nicholson. Boulle outlined the reasoning which led him to conceive the character of Nicholson in an interview which forms part of the 1969 BBC2 documentary Return to the River Kwai made by former POW John Coast. A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book Railroad of Death.
Pierre Boulle
Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French author. He is best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963), that were both made into award-winning films.
Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Southeast Asia, when he was captured and imprisoned for two years. These experiences inspired The Bridge over the River Kwai, about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film, named The Bridge on the River Kwai, by David Lean won seven Academy Awards (including Best Adapted Screenplay), and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two actual screenwriters had been blacklisted.
His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes, in which intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, developed into a media franchise spanning over 55 years that includes ten films, two television series, comic books and popular themed merchandise.
Born in Avignon, France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as a Catholic, although later in life he became an agnostic.[citation needed] He studied at the prestigious École supérieure d'électricité (Supélec) where he received an degree in engineering in 1933. From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician at SOCFIN rubber plantations in Malaya. Boulle met a Frenchwoman at a dinner held at his supervisor's residence, The White Palace, who was separated from her husband. She was soon to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in French Indochina. During World War II she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship.[citation needed]
At the outbreak of World War II, Boulle enlisted with the French army in Indochina. After German troops occupied France, he became a supporter of Charles de Gaulle and joined the Free French Mission in Singapore. Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and was sent on a mission to help resistance movements in China, Burma, and French Indochina. In 1943, he was captured by Vichy France loyalists on the Mekong River. Two years later, Boulle managed to escape from Saigon.
Boulle was later made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. He described his war experiences in the non-fiction My Own River Kwai. After the war he kept in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life.
After the war, Boulle returned to work for a while in the plantations of SOCFIN in Malaya, in 1949 he moved back to Paris and began to write, drawing from his memories of Malaya and Indochina. While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in a hotel until his recently widowed sister, Madeleine Perrusset, allowed him to move into her large apartment. She had a daughter, Françoise, whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized.
While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952; The Bridge over the River Kwai), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning the French "Prix Sainte-Beuve". The book was a semi-fictional story based on the real plight of Allied POWs forced to build a 415 km (258 mi) railway that passed over the bridge, and which became known as the "Death Railway". 16,000 prisoners and 100,000 Asian conscripts died during construction of the line.[citation needed] His character of Lt-Col. Nicholson was not based on the real Allied senior officer at the Kwai bridges, Philip Toosey, but was reportedly an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. Both the book and film outraged former prisoners because Toosey did not collaborate with the enemy, unlike the fictional Colonel Nicholson. Boulle outlined the reasoning which led him to conceive the character of Nicholson in an interview which forms part of the 1969 BBC2 documentary Return to the River Kwai made by former POW John Coast. A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book Railroad of Death.