Ogilvy, Ian 1943- (Ian Raymond Ogilvy)

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Ogilvy, Ian 1943- (Ian Raymond Ogilvy)

PERSONAL:

Born September 30, 1943, in Woking, Surrey, England; son of Francis Ogilvy (an advertising executive) and Aileen Raymond (an actress); married; first wife's name Diane (divorced); married Kathryn Holcomb (an actress), 1992; children: (first marriage) Emma, Titus; two stepsons. Hobbies and other interests: Playing computer games, gardening, building things out of wood, riding his motorcycle, SCUBA diving.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Southern CA.

CAREER:

Actor and author. Actor on stage and in films, including (as Desmond Flower) Stranger in the House, 1967; (as Mike Roscoe) The Sorcerers, 1967; (as Ronald) The Invincible Six, 1967; (as Edgar Linton) Wuthering Heights, 1970; (as William De Lancy) Waterloo, 1970; (as William Seaton) From beyond the Grave, 1973; and (as Captain Starch) Eddie Presley, 1992. Actor in television films and series, including The Liars, 1966; The Avengers, 1968; (as Lawrence Kirbridge) Upstairs, Downstairs, 1972; (as Edward VIII) The Gathering Storm, 1974; (as Humphrey Oliver) Moll Flanders, 1975; Ripping Yarns, 1976; (as Drusus) I, Claudius, 1976; (as Simon Templar) Return of the Saint, 1978-79; (as Lord Edgar) Robin of Sherwood, 1986; (as Reginald Hewitt) Generations, 1990; Walker, Texas Ranger, 1994; (as Harold Baines) Murder, She Wrote, 1989-94; (as Jerry Lane) Diagnosis: Murder, 1995-99; The Faculty, 1996; (as Marc Delacourt) Malibu Shores, 1996; Murphy Brown, 1997; (as Lional Spencer) Caroline in the City, 1997; JAG, 1997; (as Leo Turnlow) Melrose Place, 1999; Fugitive Mind, 1999; Dharma and Greg, 2000; The Parkers, 2002; and After Midnight, 2007. Has appeared in television specials, and worked as a voiceover actor.

WRITINGS:

"MEASLE" NOVEL SERIES; FOR CHILDREN

Measle and the Wrathmonk, illustrated by Chris Mould, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2004.

Measle and the Dragodon, illustrated by Chris Mould, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2004, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2005.

Measle and the Mallockee, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

Measle and the Slitherghoul, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2006.

Measle and the Doompit, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2007.

The "Measle" series has been translated into over fifteen languages.

OTHER

The Stud Farm (screenplay), produced, 1969.

Loose Chippings (adult novel), Headline (London, England), 1996.

The Polkerton Giant (adult novel), Headline (London, England), 1997.

A Slight Hangover: A Comedy (stage play), Samuel French (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Though Ian Ogilvy is perhaps best known as a television and film actor, he has also built a loyal audience as a writer. Beginning his authorial career penning novels, Ogilvy has more recently turned his attention to a younger audience. With each installment in his "Measle" novel series he has earned an increasing readership, both in his native England and among readers of the fifteen other languages his novels have been translated into. Beginning with Measle and the Wrathmonk, Ogilvy's series draws readers into a fantasy world and the adventures of an orphaned boy as he battles the legion of evil wizards known as wrathmonks, defending those who are threatened by the wizards' evil plans. "I still can't shake the idea that I'm a bit of a fraud," the author admitted to an interviewer for the London Times Online. "I keep thinking I'm an actor who has merely dabbled in books and got lucky."

Readers first meet Ogilvy's stalwart young hero in Measle and the Wrathmonk. After his parents mysteriously disappear, Measle Stubbs goes to live with his uncle, Basil Tramplebone, A totally unpleasant man, Uncle Basil is, as the boy soon discovers, also a wrathmonk. This discovery comes with consequences: the boy is shrunk to the size of a thimble and exiled to a toy train set in his uncle's attic. There Measle soon meets up with Prudence, a wrathmonk-ologist who has suffered a similar fate, and sets about forcing his uncle to return him to his proper size. "Ogilvy's storytelling will remind readers a little of Lemony Snicket, with a dash of Harry Potter tossed in," wrote Michele Winship in her Kliatt review of Measle and the Wrathmonk. Ed Sullivan, writing in Booklist, concluded that Ogilvy's "entertaining, fast-paced novel has moments of humor and suspense," while a Publishers Weekly critic compared the book to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, writing that the story's "Lilliputian scenes offer some keen suspense."

In Measle and the Dragodon, Measle's mother becomes the target of an army of wrathmonks led by a wicked dragodon, or dragon rider. After Mom is kidnapped, Measle tracks down clues as to her fate in an abandoned amusement park, and must rely on such whimsically inspired talismans as magic jellybeans in order to extract himself from the quandary that results. Measle and the Mallockee finds our hero confronted by his nemesis, supposed friend Toby Jugg, as he protects his little sister so that she can fulfill her destiny as a mallockee, or powerful wizard. Although Measle himself possesses no magical powers, he uses brainpower to get himself and his spell-wielding sibling out of trouble. Walter Minkel, reviewing Measle and the Dragodon for School Library Journal, felt that, while Ogilvy's villains are too inept to be truly threatening, characters such as Tinker, Measle's canine sidekick, add plot dimensions that "are often pretty funny." A Kirkus Reviews contributor dubbed Measle and the Mallockee the best entry in the series to date, and Shelle Rosenfeld, reviewing the same book for Booklist, described Ogilvy's novel as "a fast-reading, occasionally humorous tale of magic and mayhem."

Ogilvy continues the adventures of Measle in Measle and the Slitherghoul, in which the slimy creature that has eaten the wrathmonks now desires Measle as dessert. Readers of Measle and the Doompit follow the boy on a journey to Dystopia, an aptly named land of horrors wherein Measle must once again confront arch enemy Jugg.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2004, Ed Sullivan, review of Measle and the Wrathmonk, p. 329; January 1, 2006, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of Measle and the Mallockee, p. 88.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2005, review of Measle and the Dragodon, p. 293; November 15, 2005, review of Measle and the Mallockee, p. 1235.

Kliatt, July, 2004, Michele Winship, review of Measle and the Wrathmonk, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, November 8, 2004, review of Measle and the Wrathmonk, p. 56.

School Librarian, winter, 2004, Tim Saunders, "Spotlight on Ian Ogilvy," p. 174; spring, 2005, Cherie Gladstone, review of Measle and the Dragodon, p. 36; summer, 2006, Lesley Martin, review of Measle and the Mallockee, p. 90.

School Library Journal, September, 2004, Eva Mitnick, review of Measle and the Wrathmonk, p. 214; August, 2005, Walter Minkel, review of Measle and the Dragodon, p. 132; February, 2006, Carly B. Wiskoff, review of Measle and the Mallockee, p. 134.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 2005, Christina Fairman, review of Measle and the Wrathmonk, p. 60; February, 2006, Christina Fairman, review of Measle and the Mallockee, p. 502.