Colleen McCullough, prolific author and national treasure, was a qualified neurophysiologist and worked for many years in hospitals in Australia and the UK, and taught at Yale in the US. She was born on June 1, 1937 in Wellington, New South Wales.
Her first book, Tim, was published in 1974 and became an instant hit – the movie adaptation launched the career of a young actor named Mel Gibson. She is best known internationally for The Thorn Birds, starring Rachel Ward and Richard Chamberlain, but fans of historical fiction remember her many books set in the past, from ancient Greece and Rome to Australia’s convict colony to the twentieth-century wars. They include The Masters of Rome series, Morgan’s Run, and Bittersweet.
She was declared a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1997 and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2006. She died on her beloved Norfolk Island on January 29, 2015, and was buried at Emily Bay Cemetery.
The photographs below are of Colleen McCullough through the years and her home on Norfolk Island.
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