Jan de Hartog

The son of a minister, de Hartog ran away to sea twice in his boyhood. Later, after attending the Netherlands Naval College, he went back to sea as a sailor. During this time he wrote detective stories and then a popular novel about tugboat crews titled "Holland's Glory". During the Nazi occupation he found sanctuary in a house in Amsterdam. After the war he moved to England, began to write in English, and turned out a number of novels, some of which were filmed: _The Spiral Road (1962)_ (qv) with 'Rock Hudson' (qv), "The Inspector" with 'Stephen Boyd' (qv) (released under the title _Lisa (1962)_ (qv)), and "Stella" with 'William Holden' (qv) and 'Sophia Loren' (qv) (released as _The Key (1958)_ (qv)).In 1951 his play, "The Fourposter", became a major Broadway success starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. A movie version followed with 'Rex Harrison' (qv) and 'Lilli Palmer' (qv) and then Broadway musicalized it as "I Do! I Do!" with Robert Preston and Mary Martin. De Hartog was briefly married as a young man in Holland. In England, in 1946, he married Angela Priestley, daughter of 'J.B. Priestley' (qv). In 1961 he married 'Marjorie Mein' (qv) with whom he lived in Houston, Texas, during his later years. Two children from the first marriage, Sylvia and Arnold, still live in the Netherlands. Two children from the second marriage, Catherine and Nicholas, still live in England. With his third wife de Hartog adopted two Korean girls, Eva Kim and Julia Kim, who live in America.::dinky-4 of Minneapolis