MITCHELL, James 1926-2002

(James Munro)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born March 12, 1926, in South Shields, County Durham, England; died of cancer September 15, 2002, in Newcastle, England. Author. Mitchell was a well-known writer of British television series and spy novels. Receiving his master's degree from Saint Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1949 and a diploma in education from the University of Durham, Mitchell started his career as an actor, travel agent, and civil service employee before being hired to the faculty of Shields Technical College in 1950. Also doing some secondary school teaching, he remained at Shields through the 1950s. However, Mitchell did not find teaching a satisfying occupation, so at the age of twenty-eight he began to write novels. He soon found success with his first book, Here's a Villain! (1957), which was published in the United States as The Lady Is Waiting. Mitchell also discovered he had a talent for script writing and, except for a brief period as a lecturer at the Sunderland College of Art in 1963, he became a full-time script writer in 1959. As a writer for television, Mitchell completed over one hundred scripts. He was most well known for the popular spy series Callan, which ran from 1967 to 1972 and was adapted as two movies in 1974 and 1981, and for the Depression-era drama When the Boat Comes In, which was broadcast in 1976 to 1977, with more episodes being produced in 1981. Other series by Mitchell include Goodbye Darling and Justice. As an author of novels, Mitchell wrote over two dozen books, some under the pseudonym James Munro, that were mostly in the espionage genre. For his 1959 novel A Way Back, he won the British Crime Writers' Association Award; more recent books include So Far from Home (1995) and Dancing for Joy (1997).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Who's Who, 153rd Year of Issue, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2002, p. B12.

New York Times, September 23, 2002, p. A25.

Times (London, England), September 26, 2002.