Leon Uris (78), author of Exodus, dies in NY

US: Best-selling American novelist Leon Uris, best known for Exodus about the creation of Israel and Trinity on the conflict…

US: Best-selling American novelist Leon Uris, best known for Exodus about the creation of Israel and Trinity on the conflict in Northern Ireland, has died in New York, his ex-wife, Jill Uris, said on Tuesday. He was 78.

She said by telephone from Aspen, Colorado, that the novelist died on Saturday at his home on New York's Shelter Island after suffering from various ailments.

Jill Uris said the author had lived on the small island off Long Island since 1989 and that a new book, O'Hara's Choice, a historical fiction about the US Marine Corps - was scheduled to be published by HarperCollins in October. "He completed it in the spring," she said.

Uris' novels reflected his experiences as a marine in the second World War and as a war correspondent. His first novel, Battle Cry, was published in 1953 when he was 29-years-old and it was turned into a film.

READ MORE

In 1956, six years after becoming a full-time writer, Uris reported on the Middle East conflict. Apart from Exodus in 1958 and Trinity in 1976, Uris was also known for his screenplay, Gunfight at the OK Corral, a 1957 movie directed by John Sturges, with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1924, Uris attended schools in Maryland and Virginia but never graduated from high school. At 17, he joined the US Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific. His 1988 work, Mitla Pass, was a largely autobiographical account of the Sinai campaign of 1956.

Uris married three times. He leaves five children from two of the marriages.