Colleen McCullough

**Colleen Margaretta McCullough**  (; married name **Robinson**, previously **Ion-Robinson**; 1 June 193729 January 2015) was an Australian author. She was famous world-wide.

## Life

McCullough was born in 1937. Her parents were James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved many times. She read a lot. She attended Holy Cross College.

McCullough earned a living as a teacher, librarian, and journalist. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis. She was told not to be a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked in Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

In 1963, McCullough moved to the United Kingdom for four years. At Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University. He offered her a research associate job at Yale. McCullough spent ten years from April 1967 to 1976 researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It was while at Yale that she wrote her first two books.

Because these books were successful, McCullough stopped being a doctor. In the late 1970s, she lived in London and Connecticut, USA. She finally picked Norfolk Island in the Pacific. There she met her husband, Ric Robinson (then 33 years old). They married on 13 April 1983 (she was 46 years old).

In 1984 a portrait of McCullough, painted by Wesley Walters, was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. The prize is for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics".

McCullough did a lot of historical research for the novels on ancient Rome.  This led to her getting a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University in 1993.

McCullough was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.  She was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She now lives in Sydney.

Some people did not like McCullough's 2008 novel _The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett_. She changed some of the characters in Jane Austen's _Pride and Prejudice_.

McCullough died on 29 January 2015 at the age of 77 on Norfolk Island from renal failure.

### Novels

- _Tim_ (1974).  Made into a film in 1979
- _The Thorn Birds_ (1977)
- _An Indecent Obsession_ (1981)
- _ A Creed for the Third Millennium_ (1985)
- _The Ladies of Missalonghi_ (1987)
- _The Song of Troy_ (1998)
- _Morgan's Run_ (2000)
- _The Touch_ (2003)
- _Angel Puss_ (2004)
- _On, Off_ (2006)
- _The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet_ (2008)
- "Too Many Murders" (2010)

### Biography

- _ The Courage and the Will: The Life of Roden Cutler VC_ (1999)

### Masters of Rome Series

1. _The First Man in Rome_ (1990)
1. _The Grass Crown_ (1991)
1. _Fortune's Favorites_ (1993)
1. _Caesar's Women_ (1996)
1. _Caesar_ (1997)
1. _The October Horse_ (2002)
1. _Antony and Cleopatra_ (2007)

### Carmine Delmonico series

1. _On, Off_ (2006)
1. _Too Many Murders_ (December 2009)
1. _Naked Cruelty_ (2010)

## Screen adaptations

- _Tim_ - made into a movie in 1979 starring Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie
- _The Thorn Birds_ - made into a TV miniseries in 1983 starring Richard Chamberlain
- _An Indecent Obsession_ -  made into a movie in 1985 starring Gary Sweet
- _The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years_ - made into a TV miniseries in 1996 starring Richard Chamberlain.
- _Mary & Tim_ - a 1996 adaptation of the novel _Tim_

## References

- Mary Jean DeMarr: _Colleen McCullough: A Critical Companion_. Greenwood Publishing Group 1996,   ()

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: Colleen McCullough
- **birth date**: June 1, 1937
- **birth place**: Wellington, New South Wales, Wellington, New South Wales, Australia
- **death place**: Norfolk Island, Australia
- **occupation**: Novelist, Neuroscientist
- **genre**: Fiction, fantasy, drama
- **spouse**: Ric Robinson