1. Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and The Ladies of Missalonghi.
16 Facts About Colleen McCullough
1. 2.
Colleen McCullough's father was of Irish descent and her mother was a New Zealander of part-Maori descent.
3.
Colleen McCullough had a younger brother, Carl, who drowned off the coast of Crete when he was 25 while trying to rescue tourists in difficulty.
4.
Colleen McCullough based a character in The Thorn Birds on him, and wrote about him in Life Without the Boring Bits.
5.
In 1963, Colleen McCullough moved for four years to the United Kingdom; at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University who offered her a research associate job at Yale.
6.
Colleen McCullough spent 10 years researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States.
7.
Colleen McCullough drew maps of cities and battlefields, scoured the world's museums for busts and inscriptions, consulted experts in a dozen universities and recorded every known fact about her subject and his times.
8.
Colleen McCullough changed his name formally to Ric Newton Ion Robinson in 2002.
9.
Colleen McCullough died on 29 January 2015, at the age of 77, in the Norfolk Island Hospital, Burnt Pine, from apparent renal failure after suffering from a series of small strokes.
10.
Colleen McCullough had suffered from failing eyesight due to haemorrhagic macular degeneration, and suffered from osteoporosis, trigeminal neuralgia, diabetes and uterine cancer, and used a wheelchair full-time.
11.
Colleen McCullough was buried in a traditional Norfolk Island funeral ceremony at the Emily Bay cemetery on the island.
12.
In 1978, Colleen McCullough received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
13.
In 1984, a portrait of Colleen McCullough painted by Wesley Walters was a finalist in the Archibald Prize.
14.
Colleen McCullough was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia on 12 June 2006, "[f]or service to the arts as an author and to the community through roles supporting national and international educational programs, medico-scientific disciplines and charitable organisations and causes".
15.
Colleen McCullough responded that any similarities were due to subconscious recollection.
16.
Colleen McCullough published five murder mysteries in the Carmine Delmonico series.