Gérard de Villiers

Gérard de Villiers (French: [ʒeʁaʁ də vilje]; 8 December 1929 – 31 October 2013) was a French writer, journalist and editor. HisSAS series of spy novels have been bestsellers, according to the New York Times, "His works have been translated and are especially popular in Germany, Russia, Turkey, and Japan. SAS series has sold about 100 million copies worldwide, which would make it one of the top-selling series in history, on a par with Ian Fleming's James Bond books. SAS may be the longest-running fiction series ever written by a single author."

Life

Villiers was the son of Jacques Adam de Villiers and a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, France's most reputed and highly selective Political Science university, as well as the ESJ Paris (Superior School of Journalism in Paris).

After working as a foreign correspondent until 1965, he started writing spy novels. He is the author of the spy novel series SAS, beginning in 1965, which tells the adventures of the Austrian prince and CIA agent Malko Linge. The title SAS is a play on initials and acronyms: Son Altesse sérénissime (SAS) is the French version of "His Serene Highness" (HSH). In addition, the BritishSpecial Air Service (SAS) is the principal special forces unit of the British Army.

As of 2007, Villiers had written 171 novels of the franchise, selling more than 150 million books, which are popular in Germany, Russia, Turkey and Japan, as well as in France. He published as many as four per year. Usually the locale of the story is featured in the title (as in, Les amazones de Pyongyang' or Putsch à Ouagadougou). Villiers was well-known for writing novels in tune with contemporary events, such as wars or terrorist threats. He frequently visited theatres of operation, doing research and interviews to ground his stories with accurate facts.

His mastery of political intrigue sometimes led him to publish books that anticipated crisis events. These included portrayals of the assassinations of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Due to tips from spies, he was nearly finished writing SAS: The Hunt for Carlos when the assassin was captured.

Film adaptations

• Victims of Vice (Brigade mondaine), directed by Jacques Scandelari (1978)
• Miles O'Keefe played Malko in S.A.S. à San Salvador (1983).
• Richard Young starred in Eye of the Widow (1989), directed by Andrew V. McLaglen.