(Free access) NYT article here.
"Jack Higgins, the author of dozens of best-selling adventure novels, most notably "The Eagle Has Landed," a hugely popular tale about a band of German commandos who infiltrate Britain to try to kidnap Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II, died on Saturday at his home on the English Channel island of Jersey. He was 92.
..."Everyone I dealt with in publishing thought it was a bad idea," the author reminisced in a 1987 interview with United Press International. He recalled what a British publishing executive told him: "Who on earth is going to be interested in a bunch of Germans kidnapping Winston Churchill? You've got no heroes. The public will never go for it."
The public went for it. "The Eagle Has Landed" has sold more than 50 million copies, by some estimates, since it was first published in 1975 by Collins of London and by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in the United States. Like several other Higgins novels, it was adapted for a movie, which starred Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall..."
...The boy was a poor student and was once given nine strokes on the backside for throwing snowballs at the school clock. At 15, he fled the boredom of the classroom. After a series of menial jobs, he joined the British Army, where he discovered that he could shoot a rifle very accurately (with the aid of eyeglasses) and that he was actually very intelligent. Tests put his I.Q. at 147, which is considered highly gifted.
"The army gave me a sense of what I was capable of," he said years later..."
..."Everyone I dealt with in publishing thought it was a bad idea," the author reminisced in a 1987 interview with United Press International. He recalled what a British publishing executive told him: "Who on earth is going to be interested in a bunch of Germans kidnapping Winston Churchill? You've got no heroes. The public will never go for it."
The public went for it. "The Eagle Has Landed" has sold more than 50 million copies, by some estimates, since it was first published in 1975 by Collins of London and by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in the United States. Like several other Higgins novels, it was adapted for a movie, which starred Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall..."
...The boy was a poor student and was once given nine strokes on the backside for throwing snowballs at the school clock. At 15, he fled the boredom of the classroom. After a series of menial jobs, he joined the British Army, where he discovered that he could shoot a rifle very accurately (with the aid of eyeglasses) and that he was actually very intelligent. Tests put his I.Q. at 147, which is considered highly gifted.
"The army gave me a sense of what I was capable of," he said years later..."
