Fun Facts Friday: Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier (13 May, 1907 – 19 April, 1989) was a playwright and an author from England.

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The Chichester Partnership (copyright), University of Exeter (publication),
Copyrighted free use, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9012971

1)      Ms. du Maurier’s father was Gerald du Maurier, a prominent actor; her mother was the actress Muriel Beaumont.

2)      Ms. du Maurier’s grandfather was the artist, cartoonist and writer George du Maurier.

3)      Her older sister, Angela, was also a writer, Jeanne, the youngest sister was a painter.

4)      Her cousins were the inspiration for the characters in Peter Pan.

5)      During her career, Ms. du Maurier’s writing was thought of as “intellectually lightweight”, however her work has been reappraised and today she is considered to be an excellent storyteller.

6)      For several decades, the books of Daphne du Maurier were the most popular books to be borrowed at libraries.

7)      The novel Rebecca (1938) won the National Book Award and was adopted for stage and screen several times.

8)      One of her short stories inspired the file The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

9)      The novels of du Maurier rarely end with a happy ending.

10)   She married Sir Frederick Arthur Montague “Boy” Browning, a professional soldier who rose to the rank of Lt. General and is known as “the father of the British airborne forces”. He is known to have said: “I think we may be going a bridge too far” which was the title of a book about Operation Market Garden in World War II.