The Hindu : International : Best-selling author of "Airport" dead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 26, 2004

International

International

Best-selling author of "Airport" dead

NASSAU (BAHAMAS), NOV. 25. Arthur Hailey, the best-selling author who plucked characters from ordinary life and threw them into extraordinary ordeals, died in his home in the Bahamas, his wife said today. He was 84.

Hailey died in his sleep yesterday, a few hours after having dinner with two of his six children, at his home in Lyford Cay on New Providence Island, his wife, Sheila, said.

She said that doctors believe that he had a stroke.

Mundane made thrilling

The British-born writer's knack for turning the mundane into thrilling tales led to 11 books published in 40 countries and 38 languages, with 170 million copies in print.

He used the nitty-gritty of bank procedures and hotel management as backdrops for page-turning plots, preferring real-life characters like managers and doctors to vampires and spies.

"I don't think I really invented anybody," Mr. Hailey said in a 2001 interview with Associated Press, "I have drawn on real life."

In the 1968 novel, "Airport," the manager, Mel Bakersfield, faces a crisis when a mad bomber boards a flight.

The characters of "Airport" later hit movie screens, with Burt Lancaster starring as Bakersfield and Dean Martin as a womanising pilot. The film opened the door for other disaster movies of the 1970s.

Other novels made into movies include, "Hotel," "Wheels," "The Moneychangers," and "Strong Medicine."

Born on April 5, 1920, in Luton, England, Mr. Hailey had to stop his schooling at 14 years because his parents could not afford to send him beyond England's free education system.

He served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, flying patrol fighters in West Asia and transport planes in India.

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