Dick Francis Biography

Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis CBE FRSL (31 October 1920 " 14 February 2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer, whose novels centre around horse racing in England, while also featuring a variety of locations and occupations. A columnist for The Houston Chronicle said that Francis "writes believable fairy tales for adults - ones in which the actors are better than we are but are believable enough to make us wonder if indeed we could not one day manage to emulate them."

Personal life

Francis was born in Coedcanlas, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Some sources report his birthplace as the inland town of Lawrenny, but at least two of his obituaries stated his birthplace as the coastal town of Tenby. His autobiography says that he was born at his maternal grandparents' farm at Coedcanlas on the estuary of the River Cleddau, roughly a mile north-west of Lawrenny. He was the son of a jockey and stable manager and he grew up in Berkshire, England. He left school at 15 without any qualifications, with the intention of becoming a jockey and became a trainer in 1938.

During World War II, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane. He said in an interview that he spent much of his six years in the Air Force in Africa.

In October 1945, he met Mary Margaret Brenchley (17 June 1924 " 30 September 2000), at a cousin's wedding. In most interviews, they say that it was love at first sight. (Francis has some of his characters fall similarly in love within moments of meeting, as in the novels Flying Finish, Knockdown, and The Edge.) Their families were not entirely happy with their engagement, but Dick and Mary were married in June, 1947, in London. She had earned a degree in English and French from London University at the age of 19, was an assistant stage manager and later worked as a publisher's reader. She also became a pilot, and her experiences flying contributed to many novels, including Flying Finish, Rat Race, and Second Wind. She contracted polio while pregnant with their first child, a plight dramatized to a greater extent in the novel Forfeit, which Francis called one of his favorites. They had two sons, Merrick and Felix (born 1953).

In the 1980s, Francis and his wife moved to Florida; in 1992, they moved to the Cayman Islands, where Mary died of a heart attack in 2000. In 2006, Francis had a heart bypass operation; in 2007 his right leg was amputated. He died of natural causes on 14 February 2010 at his Caribbean home in Grand Cayman, survived by both sons.

Horse racing career

After leaving the RAF in 1946, Francis became a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing. He won over 350 races, becoming champion jockey in the 1953"54 season.

Shortly after becoming a professional, he was offered the prestige job of first jockey to Vivian Smith, Lord Bicester.

From 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race. Decades later, Francis considered losing that race his greatest regret and called it "a disaster of massive proportions."

Like most jump jockeys, Francis had his share of injuries. Unlike most, he was hospitalized at the age of 12 when a pony fell on him and broke his jaw and nose. A career featuring broken bones and damaged organs found its way into many novels, whose narrators suffer a variety of damaged bodies. In 1957, after one too many serious falls, the Queen Mother's adviser, Lord Abergavenny, advised him that she wanted him to retire from racing for her.

Contributions to racing

In 1983, the Grand National at Aintree Racecourse in England "stood at the brink of extinction," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. News reporter Don Clippinger wrote, "Britain's Jockey Club negotiated a $14 million deal to buy the land and save the race forever. The only problem was that the Jockey Club did not have $14 million, so two prominent racing personalities - Lord Derby and novelist Dick Francis - were selected to raise the money in a worldwide campaign." Other philanthropists, including Charles C. Fenwick Jr., who rode Ben Nevis to victory in the 1980 Grand National, and Paul Mellon, a breeder and racing enthusiast, also contributed to save the race.

Writing career

Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957), for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned. The book's success led to his becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, and he remained in the job for 16 years.

In 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, set in the world of racing. Subsequently he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his male heroes held a variety of jobs including artist (In the Frame and To the Hilt), private investigator (Odds Against, Whip Hand, Come to Grief, Under Orders—all starring injured ex-jockey Sid Halley, one of only two heroes used more than once), investigator for the Jockey Club (The Edge), pilot (Rat Race and Flying Finish), wine merchant (Proof) and many others. All the novels are narrated by the hero, who in the course of the story discovers himself to be more resourceful, brave, tricky, than he had thought, and usually finds a certain salvation for himself as well as bestowing it on others. Details of other people's occupations fascinated Francis, and the reader finds himself or herself immersed in the mechanics of such things as photography, accountancy, the gemstone trade, restaurant service on transcontinental trains—but always in the interests of the plot. Dysfunctional families were a subject which he exploited particularly well (Reflex, a baleful grandmother; Hot Money, a multi-millionaire father and serial ex-husband; Decider, the related co-owners of a racecourse).

Many of Francis' books are featured in volumes of Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

Writing routine

Francis described a typical year of research and writing to an interviewer in 1989:

In January, he sits down to write, staring down the barrel of a deadline. "My publisher comes over in mid-May to collect the manuscript," he says, "and it's got to be done."
The book's publication takes place in England in September. American publication in past years has been in February, although his next book, Straight, is set to be published in November. Once the manuscript is out of his hands, he takes the summer off, while percolating the plot of his next book. Research on the next book begins in late summer and continues through the fall, while he's gearing up for his promotional tour for the just-published book. Come January, he sits down to write again.
He doesn't like book tours. He is not one for revelations, major life changes, and intimacies with strange interviewers, and he says he gets tired of answering the same questions again and again.
He shuns the lecture circuit. He'd prefer to let his novels and his sales volume speak for themselves... And though he doesn't love the act of writing a 2287038nd [sic] [and] could easily retire, he finds himself planning his new book as each summer ends.
He says, "Each one, you think to yourself, 'This is the last one,' but then, by September, you're starting again. If you've got money, and you're just having fun, people think you're a useless character."
Or, as independently wealthy Tor Kelsey says in The Edge, explaining why he works for a minuscule salary: "I work... because I like it, I'm not all that bad at what I do, really, and it's useful, and I'm not terribly good at twiddling my thumbs."

Collaboration

Francis collaborated extensively in his fiction with his wife, Mary, until her death, which came as a later surprise to some readers and reviewers. He credited her with being a great researcher for the novels. In 1981, Don Clippinger interviewed the Francises for The Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote, "When Dick Francis sits down each January to begin writing another of his popular mystery-adventure novels, it is almost a certain bet that his wife, Mary, has developed a new avocation... For instance, in Rat Race, [the protagonist] operated an air-taxi service that specialized in carrying jockeys, trainers and owners to distant race courses. Before that book came out in 1970, Mrs. Francis obtained a pilot's license and was operating an air-taxi service of her own. Francis' newest novel, Reflex, is built around photography, and sure enough, Mary Francis has become accomplished behind the camera and in the darkroom... And, in their condominium, they have set up the subject of his 20th novel [Twice Shy] - a computer. While he is touring the country, she is working on new computer programs."

Mary Amoroso wrote for New Jersey's The Record, "Mary does much of the research: She went so far as to learn to fly a plane for Flying Finish. She also edits his manuscripts, and serves as sounding board for plot line and character development. Says Francis, 'At least the research keeps her from going out shopping.'" Francis told interviewers Jean Swanson and Dean James,

Francis' manager (and co-author of his later books) was his son Felix, who left his post as teacher of A-Level Physics at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire in order to work for his father. Felix was the inspiration behind a leading character, a marksman and physics teacher, in the novel Twice Shy. The older son, Merrick, was a racehorse trainer and later ran his own horse transport business, which inspired the novel Driving Force.

Father and son collaborated on four novels; after Dick's death, Felix carried on to publish novels with his father's name in the title (Dick Francis's Gamble (2011), Dick Francis's Bloodline (2012)).

Adaptations

His first novel, Dead Cert, was filmed under the same title in 1974. Directed by Tony Richardson, it starred Scott Antony, Judi Dench and Michael Williams. It was adapted again as Favorit (a Russian made-for-television movie) in 1977.

Francis's protagonist Sid Halley was featured in six TV movies made for the program The Dick Francis Thriller: The Racing Game (1979-1980), starring Mike Gwilym as Halley and Mick Ford as his partner, Chico Barnes. One of the shows, Odds Against, used a Francis title; the others were created for the program.

Three more TV films of 1989 were adaptations of Bloodsport, In the Frame, and Twice Shy, all starring Ian McShane and featuring protagonist David Cleveland, a name actually used only once by Francis, in the novel Slayride.

Honours

Francis is the only three-time recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel, winning for Forfeit in 1970, Whip Hand in 1981, and Come To Grief in 1996. Britain's Crime Writers Association awarded him its Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. he was granted another Lifetime Achievement Award . Tufts University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1991. In 1996 he was given the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the highest honour bestowed by the MWA. In 2000, he was granted the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1983 and promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000.

Mary Amoroso wrote in 1989, "And yet he has a keen sense of the evanescence of literary endeavors. 'Whole months of work can be gone in four hours,' he says ruefully. 'People say they can't put my books down, and so they read them in one sitting of four hours.' Francis has been long accustomed to celebrity as a British sports star, but today he is a worldwide phenomenon, having been published in 22 languages. In Australia, he is recognized in restaurants, from his book-jacket picture. He and Mary will see people reading the novels on planes and trains."

Francis was elected in 1999 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Bibliography

Title	Year	ISBN of first edition	Main character	Notes
The Sport of Queens	1957			autobiography
Dead Cert	1962		Alan York, amateur jockey	Basis of the movie Dead Cert (1974)
Nerve	1964		Rob Finn, jockey	Basis of the audio drama Breaking Point, starring Michael Kitchen
For Kicks	1965		Daniel Roke, Australian horse breeder temporarily turned UK investigator
Odds Against	1965	ISBN 0-330-10597-3	Sid Halley, investigator	Edgar Award nominee
Flying Finish	1966		Henry Grey, groom/heir to earldom, pilot	Edgar Award nominee
Blood Sport	1967		Gene Hawkins, government security agent	Edgar Award nominee
Forfeit	1968	ISBN 0-425-20191-0	James Tyrone, reporter	Edgar Award winner
Enquiry	1969		Kelly Hughes, jockey
Rat Race	1970		Matt Shore, former airline pilot now flying charter
Bonecrack	1971	ISBN 0-718-10898-1	Neil Griffon, formerly antique dealer, then business consultant, acting as temporary trainer whilst his father is hospitalised
Smokescreen	1972	ISBN 0-718-1103-90	Edward Lincoln, movie actor who does his own stunts
Slay Ride	1973	ISBN 0-718-11150-8	David Cleveland, investigator
Knockdown	1974	ISBN 0-718-11297-0	Jonah Dereham, bloodstock agent
High Stakes	1975	ISBN 0-718-11393-4	Steven Scott, toy inventor
In the Frame	1976	ISBN 0-718-11527-9	Charles Todd, painter
Risk	1977	ISBN 0-718-11636-4	Roland Britten, accountant
Trial Run	1978		Randall Drew, gentleman and ex-jockey
Whip Hand	1979	ISBN 0-718-11845-6	Sid Halley, investigator	Edgar Award winner, Gold Dagger winner
Reflex	1980	ISBN 0-718-11950-0	Philip Nore, jockey and photographer
Twice Shy	1981	ISBN 0-718-12056-6	Jonathan Derry, teacher, second part narrated by younger brother William Derry, jockey & later racing manager
Banker	1982	ISBN 0-718-12173-2	Tim Ekaterin, merchant banker
The Danger	1983		Andrew Douglas, anti-kidnapping consultant
Proof	1984	ISBN 0-718-12481-2	Tony Beach, wine merchant
Break In	1985	ISBN 0-718-12597-5	Kit Fielding, jockey
Bolt	1986	ISBN 0-718-12756-0	Kit Fielding, jockey
A Jockey's Life	1986	ISBN 0-399-13179-5 / 978-0-399-13179-0 (USA edition)		Biography of Lester Piggott, later reissued as Lester
Hot Money	1987	ISBN 0-718-12851-6	Ian Pembroke, former asst trainer, amateur jockey
The Edge	1988	ISBN 0-718-13179-7	Tor Kelsey, investigator for the Jockey Club
Straight	1989	ISBN 0-718-13180-0	Derek Franklin, jockey & later jewelry firm owner
Longshot	1990	ISBN 0-718-13447-8	John Kendall, writer and survival skills expert
Comeback	1991		Peter Darwin, diplomat
Driving Force	1992	ISBN 0-718-13482-6	Freddie Croft, trucking company owner
Decider	1993	ISBN 0-718-13602-0	Lee Morris, architect
Wild Horses	1994	ISBN 0-718-13603-9	Thomas Lyon, film director
Come to Grief	1995	ISBN 0-7181-3753-1	Sid Halley, investigator	Edgar Award winner
To the Hilt	1996	ISBN 0-718-142136	Alexander Kinloch, painter
10 LB. Penalty	1997	ISBN 0-718-14245-4	Ben Juliard, jockey/politician's son
Field of 13	1998	ISBN 0-718-14351-5		short stories: 1. "Raid at Kingdom Hill" (first appeared in The Times, 1975) 2. "Dead on Red" 3. "Song for Mona" 4. "Bright White Star" (first appeared in Cheshire Life, Christmas 1979) 5. "Collision Course" 6. "Nightmare" (first appeared in The Times, 13 April 1974) 7. "Carrot for a Chestnut" (first appeared in Sports Illustrated, 1970) 8. "The Gift" (first appeared as "A Day of Wine and Roses" in Sports Illustrated, 1973) 9. "Spring Fever" (first appeared in Women's Own magazine, 1980) 10. "Blind Chance" (first appeared as "Twenty-one Good Men and True" in Verdict of Thirteen: A Detection Club Anthology, 1979) 11. "Corkscrew" 12. "The Day of the Losers" (first appeared in Horse and Hound, February 1977) 13. "Haig's Death"
Second Wind	1999	ISBN 0-718-14408-2	Perry Stuart, meteorologist
Shattered	2000	ISBN 0-718-14453-8	Gerard Logan, glass blower
Under Orders	2006	ISBN 978-0-330-44833-8	Sid Halley, investigator
Dead Heat	2007	ISBN 978-0-399-15476-8	Max Moreton, chef	with Felix Francis
Silks	2008	ISBN 978-0-7181-5457-8	Geoffrey Mason, barrister	with Felix Francis
Even Money	2009	ISBN 978-0-399-15591-8	Ned Talbot, bookmaker	with Felix Francis
Crossfire	2010	US ISBN 978-0-399-15681-6 UK ISBN 978-0-7181-5663-3	Captain Tom Forsyth, military officer	with Felix Francis
Gamble	2011	ISBN 978-1-4104-3870-6	Nicholas "Foxy" Foxton, financial adviser	written after Dick Francis's death by Felix Francis

See also

• John Francome