George MacDonald Fraser

George MacDonald Fraser
Born	2 April 1925 Carlisle, England
Died	2 January 2008(2008-01-02) (aged 82) Isle of Man
Occupation	Author
Known for	Flashman novels; McAuslan short stories; screenplay for Octopussy
Spouse(s)	Kathleen Hetherington
Children	Caro Fraser, writer

George MacDonald Fraser, OBE FRSL (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote historical novels, non-fiction books and several screenplays. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman.

Biography

Fraser was born to Scottish parents in Carlisle, England on 2 April 1925. His father was a doctor and his mother a nurse. It was his father who passed on to Fraser his love of reading, and a passion for his Scottish heritage.

Fraser was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy; he later described himself as a poor student due to "sheer laziness". This meant that he was unable to follow his father's wishes and study medicine.

War Service

In 1943, during World War II, he enlisted in The Border Regiment and served in the Burma Campaign, recounted in his remarkable memoir Quartered Safe Out Here. After completion of his OCTU (Officer Cadet Training Unit) course, Fraser was granted a commission into the Gordon Highlanders. He served with them in the Middle East and North Africa immediately after the war, notably in Tripoli. In 1947 Fraser decided against remaining with the army and took up his demobilisation. He has written semi-autobiographical stories and anecdotes of his time with the Gordon Highlanders in the “McAuslan” series.

Journalism

After his discharge, Fraser returned to the United Kingdom. Through his father he got a job as a trainee reporter on the Carlisle Journal and married another journalist, Kathleen Hetherington. They travelled to Canada, working on newspapers there, before returning again to Scotland. Starting in 1953, he worked for many years as a journalist at the Glasgow Herald newspaper where he was deputy editor from 1964 until 1969. He briefly held the title of acting editor.

Novelist

In 1966 Fraser got the idea to turn Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days into a hero and wrote a novel around his exploits. The book proved popular and led to a series of further novels, presented as packets of memoirs written by the nonagenarian Flashman, who looks back on his days as a hero of the British Army during the 19th century. The series is notable for the accuracy of the historical settings and praise from critics. P.G. Wodehouse said of Flashman, "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."

Fraser also fictionalised his post-war military experience as the adventures of the rather unassuming "Dand" MacNeill in a Scottish regiment of the line. This series of short stories is noted for the strong and strange characters surrounding McNeill, including an aged and prototypical Colonel, a perfect-soldier Regimental Sergeant-Major, a Wodehousian Adjutant, an active and dedicated pipe sergeant, a die-hard Algerian revolutionary, various blackguards and spivs, and, most memorably, Private John McAuslan, the dirtiest soldier in the world. Featuring games of golf, scrapes and run-ins with the police both military and civil, the transfer of the die-hard to the French (of all people), and McAuslan's various disasters, these works form a picture of the British army in the period immediately after World War II.

Screenwriter

The film rights to Flashman were bought by Richard Lester who was unable to get the film funded but hired Fraser to write the screenplay for The Three Musketeers in Christmas 1972. This was successful and also launched Fraser as a screenwriter. For the next twenty years he would alternate between novels and film scripts, including work as a script doctor.

Honours

George MacDonald Fraser was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1999. A traditionalist, he was an Honorary Member of the British Weights and Measures Association, which opposes compulsory conversion to the metric system. He died on 2 January 2008 from cancer, aged 82.

Family

He is the father of novelist Caro Fraser. Husband to Kathleen, three children - Simon, Caroline and Nicholas. Grandfather to eight.

Works

Flashman Novels

The Flashman series constitute Fraser's major works. There are 12 books in the series:

• Flashman (1969)
• Royal Flash (1970)
• Flash for Freedom! (1971)
• Flashman at the Charge (1973)
• Flashman in the Great Game (1975)
• Flashman's Lady (1977)
• Flashman and the Redskins (1982)
• Flashman and the Dragon (1985)
• Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990)
• Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994)
• Flashman and the Tiger (1999)
• Flashman on the March (2005)

Short Stories

• The "Dand MacNeill" or "McAuslan" stories, a semi-autobiographical series of short stories based on the author's experiences in the Gordon Highlanders in North Africa and Scotland soon after World War II. Some of the stories were originally by-lined "by Dand MacNeill", a play on the regimental motto BYDAND, meaning standfast:
  • The General Danced at Dawn (1970)
  • McAuslan in the Rough (1974)
  • The Sheikh and the Dustbin (1988)
  • The Complete McAuslan (HarperCollins 2000) (All the stories in the three volumes, with a new introduction.)

History

• The Steel Bonnets (1971), a history of the Border Reivers of the Anglo-Scottish Border.
• The Hollywood History of the World: From One Million Years B.C. to Apocalypse Now (1988, revised 1996) The book discusses how Hollywood deals with history. It concludes that the standard of historical analysis in most movies is far better than one might imagine. The text is illustrated by comparative images of figures from history and the actors who portrayed them in film. In many cases the similarities are striking.

Memoirs

• Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), a memoir of his experiences as an infantryman in the Border Regiment during the Burma Campaign of World War II
• The Light's on at Signpost (2002), a memoir of the author's days writing in Hollywood, interspersed with criticism of political correctness and New Labour.

Other Novels

• Mr American (1980), a novel about a mysterious American in England, the book comes to life in the hero's dealings with the aged General Harry Flashman.
• The Pyrates (1983), a tongue-in-cheek novel incorporating all the possible buccaneer film plots into one.
• Black Ajax (1997), a novel about Tom Molineaux, a 19th century black prizefighter in England. (As in Mr American, this novel is also connected to the Flashman series - in this case Sir Harry Flashman's father plays a minor role.)
• The Candlemass Road (1993), a short novel about the Border Reivers of the 16th century.
• The Reavers (2007), a comic novel of the Border Reivers, loosely based on the Candlemass Road, in the style of his earlier novel The Pyrates.

Screenplays

Fraser wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for:

• The Three Musketeers (1973)
• The Four Musketeers (1974)
• Royal Flash (1975, adapted from his novel)
• Crossed Swords (US) or The Prince and the Pauper (UK) (1977)
• Force 10 From Navarone (uncredited) (1978)
• Octopussy (1983)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
• Some script-doctor work on Superman II and Ashanti (1979)

Unproduced Screenplays

Fraser also wrote the following scripts which were never filmed:

• adaptation of The General Danced at Dawn commissioned in 1972
• Prince of Thieves from the Alexandre Dumas' version of the Robin Hood story
• Bulldog Drummond - adaptation of the novels
• Hannah - adaptation of novel about the life of Helena Rubenstein with director Jack Clayton
• Thirteen Against the Bank - true story about a man who leaned how to beat the bank at Monte Carlo
• adaptation of the William Tell story set against the background of the Battle of Mortgarten
• The Lone Ranger with director John Landis, date unknown
• The Ice People - adaptation of a novel about the discovery of a man and a woman from an ancient civilisation trapped in ice
• Berry and Co based on a story by Dornford Yates for director Lindsay Anderson
• Stortebekker for director Wolfgang Petersen about the medieval German pirate Klaus Störtebeker
• Quentin Durward from the novel by Sir Walter Scott
• biopic of Joe Stillwell for director Martin Ritt at MGM (early 1980s)
• adaptation of the James Clavell novel Tai-Pan, intended to star Steve McQueen (not used when the movie was made in 1986) - also a sequel
• adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for Dino de Laurentiis>

Select Articles

• "Long before the decay of lying", Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file) [Chicago, Ill] 09 Nov 1969: p6.

Radio

Fraser also wrote a number of radio plays for the BBC.

Popular culture

George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman at the Charge was in the April and June 1973 Playboy issues. The climactic sequence of Flashman in the Great Game was also excerpted there.

The character of Michael (Matthew Zeremes) in the film All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane (2007) has an ideal image of a woman that includes being a fan of George MacDonald Fraser novels.

External links

• George MacDonald Fraser at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 4 January 2008
• Obituary in The Economist, 10 January 2008
• Appreciation in The Herald, 4 January 2008
• The Last Testament of Flashman's Creator, Daily Mail 5 January 2008
• Hail the Cowardly Hero And His Bravely Un-P.C. Creator, The Wall Street Journal 17 January 2008

Media offices
Preceded by James Holburn	Acting Editor of The Herald 1964–1965	Succeeded by Alastair Wilson