Best-selling author of epic, historical novels ("Tai Pan", "Shogun" "Noble House"), who has worked as a screenwriter and director in the US since 1953, though his best film as a director is the British-produced, "To Sir, With Love" (1967). Clavell's novel "King Rat", based on his experiences in a WWII Japanese prison camp, was effectively brought to the screen in 1965 by another versatile talent, Bryan Forbes and most of his other novels have been filmed or made into TV mini-series.
Profession(s):
screenwriter, producer, director, playwright, novelist, poet, salesman
Sometimes Credited As:
Charles Edmund DuMaresq de Clavelle
Emmy Outstanding Limited Series "Shogun" 1980 - 1981
1990 Executive producer of the Broadway musical, "Shogun" (adapted from his novel)
1962 Wrote first novel, "King Rat"
1959 Film directing and producing debut, "Five Gates to Hell" (also writer)
1958 Wrote first screenplays, "The Fly" and "Watusi"
1953 Worked as salesman before a TV pilot deal brought him to US
Pursued Naval career, like his father and grandfather, but motorcycle accident left him with a limp that ended that career
Captain with British Royal Artillery, spent half of WWII in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp
Moved to Hollywood and worked carpenter by day and wrote scripts by night (including "Far Alert" which was sold but never filmed)
