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George MacDonald Fraser (2 April 1925 – 2 January 2008) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman. Over the course of his career he wrote eleven novels and one short-story collection in the Flashman series of novels, as well as non-fiction, short stories, novels and screenplays—including those for the James Bond film Octopussy, The Three Musketeers (along with both its sequels) and an adaptation of his own novel Royal Flash.

Biography

Fraser was born in Carlisle, England, on 2 April 1925, son of medical doctor William Fraser and nurse Annie Struth, née Donaldson. Both his parents were Scottish. It was his father who passed on to Fraser his love of reading, and a passion for his Scottish heritage.

Fraser was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy; he later described himself as a poor student due to "sheer laziness". This meant that he was unable to follow his father's wishes and study medicine.

War service

In 1943, during World War II, Fraser enlisted in the Border Regiment and served in the Burma campaign, as recounted in his memoir Quartered Safe Out Here (1993). After completing his Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU) course, Fraser was granted a commission into the Gordon Highlanders. He served with them in the Middle East and North Africa immediately after the war, notably in Tripoli. In 1947, Fraser decided against remaining with the army and took up his demobilisation. He wrote semi-autobiographical stories and anecdotes of his time with the Gordon Highlanders in the "McAuslan" series.

Journalism

After his discharge, Fraser returned to the United Kingdom. Through his father he got a job as a trainee reporter on the Carlisle Journal and married another journalist, Kathleen Hetherington. They travelled to Canada, working on newspapers there, before returning to Scotland. Starting in 1953, Fraser worked for many years as a journalist at the Glasgow Herald newspaper, where he was deputy editor from 1964 until 1969. He briefly held the title of acting editor.

Novelist and screenwriter

In 1966, Fraser got the idea to turn Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857), into a "hero", and he wrote a novel around the character's exploits. The book proved popular and sale of the film rights enabled Fraser to become a full-time writer. He moved to the Isle of Man where he could pay less tax. He also says he found the island "simpler a nicer place to live... more like the Britain I knew and loved as a child."

There was a series of further Flashman novels, presented as packets of memoirs written by the nonagenarian Flashman looking back on his days as a hero of the British Army during the 19th century. The series is notable for the accuracy of its historical settings and praise it received from critics. For example, P. G. Wodehouse said of Flashman, "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."

The first Flashman sequel was Royal Flash. It was published in 1970, the same year that Fraser published The General Danced at Dawn, a series of short stories which fictionalised his post-war military experience as the adventures of "Dand" MacNeill in a Scottish Highland regiment. The following year Fraser published a third Flashman, Flash for Freedom!, as well as a non-fiction work, The Steel Bonnets (1971), a history of the Border Reivers of the Anglo-Scottish Border.

The film rights to Flashman were bought by Richard Lester, who was unable to get the film funded but hired Fraser to write the screenplay for The Three Musketeers in Christmas 1972. This would be turned into two films, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, both popular at the box office, and it launched Fraser as a screenwriter.

Following Flashman at the Charge (1973), Fraser wrote the screenplay for the movie Royal Flash (1975), also directed by Richard Lester. It was not a success at the box office.

There was another collection of Dand McNeill stories, McAuslan in the Rough (1974), then Flashman in the Great Game (1975) and Flashman's Lady (1977). He was hired to rewrite The Prince and the Pauper (1977) and Force 10 from Navarone (1978). The latter was directed by Guy Hamilton who arranged for Fraser to do some work on the script for Superman (1978). He did some uncredited work on the film Ashanti and wrote an unused script for Tai Pan to star Steve McQueen. He also wrote a biopic of General Stilwell for Martin Ritt which was not filmed.

Fraser tried a more serious historical novel with Mr American (1980), although Flashman still appeared in it. Flashman and the Redskins (1982) was a traditional Flashman and The Pyrates (1983) was a comic novel about pirates. He was one of several writers who worked on the James Bond film Octopussy (1983). Richard Fleischer arranged for him to do work on the script for Red Sonja (1985).

After Flashman and the Dragon (1985) he was reunited with Lester on The Return of the Musketeers (1988) then released a final volume of McAuslan stories, The Sheikh and the Dustbin (1988) and did another history, The Hollywood History of the World (1988). When that film book came out he was reportedly working on a science fiction film Colossus and adapting Conan Doyle's The Lost World for TV but neither project was filmed.

Following Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990), Fraser wrote a version of The Lone Ranger for John Landis which ended up not being filmed. He did his memoirs of his experiences during World War II, Quartered Safe Out Here (1992).

He wrote a short novel about the Border Reivers of the 16th century, The Candlemass Road (1993), then Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994) and Black Ajax (1997), a novel about Tom Molineaux, which featured Flashman's father as a support character.