Jump to content

Margaret Landon: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Line 59: Line 59:
}}</ref>
}}</ref>


yhe couple's fourth child, Kenneth, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943. He followed the lead of his parents and took up writing about his own field of interest, releasing ''God of Glory: The Promise of Relationship'' in 1992.
The couple's fourth child, Kenneth, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943. He followed the lead of his parents and took up writing about his own field of interest, releasing ''God of Glory: The Promise of Relationship'' in 1992.


Margaret Landon was married 67 years. She died in [[Alexandria, Virginia]], December 4, 1993, aged 90, leaving 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She is interred in Wheaton Cemetery in Illinois.
Margaret Landon was married 67 years. She died in [[Alexandria, Virginia]], December 4, 1993, aged 90, leaving 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She is interred in Wheaton Cemetery in Illinois.

Revision as of 00:50, 24 March 2013

Margaret Landon
Born
Margaret Dorothea Mortenson

(1903-09-07)September 7, 1903
Somers, Wisconsin
DiedDecember 4, 1993(1993-12-04) (aged 90)
Alexandria, Virginia
EducationB.A. Wheaton College, Education (1925)
Occupation(s)Writer, Presbyterian missionary
SpouseKenneth Landon
Children4

Margaret Landon (September 7, 1903 – December 4, 1993) was an American writer best remembered for Anna and the King of Siam, her best-selling 1944 novel of the life of Anna Leonowens which eventually sold over a million copies and translated into more than twenty languages. In 1950, Landon sold the musical play rights to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who created the musical The King and I from her book. A later work, Never Dies the Dream, appeared in 1949.

Life

Born Margaret Dorothea Mortenson to Anenus Duabus "A.D." and Adelle Mortensen in Somers, Wisconsin, she was one of three daughters in a devout Methodist family. The family moved to Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated from Evanston Township High School in 1921.

She attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, graduating in 1925. She taught at a school for a year, then married Kenneth Landon, whom she knew from Wheaton, and in 1927 they signed up as Presbyterian missionaries to [[ Siam]] (Thailand.)

Between 1927-1937, Landon raised her first three children while running a mission school in Trang and read extensively about the country. During her readings, she learned about Anna Leonowens, the late-19th Century governess to the Siamese royal family of Rama V. When the Landon family returned to America in 1937, she soon began writing articles and then began researching material for a book on Leonowens.

Kenneth Landon returned to work on a Ph.D., and wrote a book on Thai politics.[1] He next worked in the Library of Congress Division of Orientalia under Horace Poleman. With the outbreak of war, Thai ambassador Kukrit Pramoj refused to deliver his government's declaration of war on the grounds that the regent had not counter-signed it. Dr. Landon, as Washington's leading expert on Thailand, worked with the Office of Strategic Services and then with the Department of State to create the Free Thai resistance movement. Dr. Landon later donated hundreds of pages of transcripts of Free Thai radio broadcasts to the Library, along with a small but important collection of post-World War II Thai books on politics as well as Thai political fiction.[2]

The couple's fourth child, Kenneth, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943. He followed the lead of his parents and took up writing about his own field of interest, releasing God of Glory: The Promise of Relationship in 1992.

Margaret Landon was married 67 years. She died in Alexandria, Virginia, December 4, 1993, aged 90, leaving 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She is interred in Wheaton Cemetery in Illinois.

Lawsuit over 1972 TV series Anna and the King

In 1972, Twentieth Century Fox produced a non-musical TV sitcom for CBS based on The King and I film called Anna and the King, with Samantha Eggar taking the part of Anna Leonowens and Yul Brynner reprising his role as the king. The series was unsuccessful and was canceled after 13 episodes. Landon charged the producers with "inaccurate and mutilated portrayals" of her literary property and sued for copyright infringement.[3][4] The suit initially failed in late 1974, but after the judgment was appealed, the parties chose to settle out of court, and a settlement was reached in 1975 with which Landon was satisfied.

References

  1. ^ Kenneth, Perry Landon (republished 1968) [originally published, 1939]. Siam in transition : a brief survey of cultural trends in the five years since the Revolution of 1932. London: Oxford Univ. Press. OCLC 716314024. Retrieved March 18, 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Asian Reading Room (August 20, 2012). "Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands". Asian Collections. Library of Congress. Archived from the original (an illustrated guide) on 2013-03-16. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
  3. ^ Lawrence Meyer, 'Court And “The King”', Washington Post, 21 November 1972, p. B2
  4. ^ Landon v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 384 F. Supp. 450 (S.D.N.Y. 1974), in Donald E. Biederman, Edward P. Pierson, Martin E. Silfen, Janna Glasser, Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries, 5th edition, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2006, pp. 349-356

Citations

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_Landon&oldid=546643665"