Colleen McCullough, who has died aged 77, was the author of the 1977 bestselling novel The Thorn Birds, which became a hugely successful television miniseries, starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. McCullough turned to writing after working for more than a decade as a neuroscientist in Australia, Britain and the United States. It was while working at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut that she wrote The Thorn Birds, a family drama set on a sheep station in the Australian outback. The paperback rights fetched a then record $1.9 million and the book eventually sold 30 million copies worldwide.
In the 1970s, profiting from the freedom her sudden windfall had given her, McCullough moved to the isolated Australian Pacific territory of Norfolk Island, where she married local resident Ric Robinson.
Apart from her blockbuster The Thorn Birds, she is known for a series of novels set in ancient Rome, which won her a Doctor of Letters degree for the quality of her research.
Colleen McCullough was born in Wellington, New South Wales, to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Maori descent. The family eventually settled in Sydney, where she attended Holy Cross College.
Career switch
Before entering tertiary education, she earned a living as a teacher, librarian and journalist. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she discovered that surgical soap would give her dermatitis and was told to abandon her hopes of becoming a medical doctor. At this point she switched to neuroscience.
Colleen McCullough’s contribution to Australian writing – and to readers around the world – has been immense, HarperCollins Australia publishing director Shona Martyn said. “We will miss her dearly.”
The most recent of her 25 works, Bittersweet, was published in 2013. She is survived by her husband.