Frederick Forsyth, former MI6 agent and bestselling author of “The Day of the Jackal,” has died at age 86. His thrillers, rooted in real-world reporting and espionage, reshaped the genre.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The British novelist Frederick Forsyth, author of “The Day Of The Jackal,” has died. He was 86 years old. As Willem Marx reports, the news-correspondent-turned-author helped create an entirely new genre of Cold War fiction.
WILLEM MARX, BYLINE: Forsyth served as a fighter pilot in his youth, then worked for the BBC and Reuters all around the world, including in Paris at a time of French tension with Algeria that threatened the life of then President Charles de Gaulle, as Forsyth told NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FREDERICK FORSYTH: I was with other journalists following him around, not for what he was doing, like visiting the Senate or whatever, but for the moment when there was a crack of a rifle and a bullet hole appeared in his forehead, and that seven years later became “The Day Of The Jackal.”
MARX: De Gaulle was unharmed by the attack that did happen. Forsyth’s fictional account became not just a bestselling book, but a blockbuster film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE DAY OF THE JACKAL”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) This was the sixth attempt on the life of President De Gaulle. In desperation, the OAS terrorists hired a professional killer. His code name – the Jackal.
MARX: The Jackal, a cold, cunning and talented assassin, became a major figure in the pantheon of espionage fiction. Just this past year, NBC Universal released a new show with the same title.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHOW, “THE DAY OF THE JACKAL”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Who’s the target?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) My clients need to know if you think it’s possible.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) It’ll cost.
MARX: A decade ago, Forsyth finally acknowledged his occasional work for Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6, his fluency in German, Russian and French useful assets as he designed plots that drew from his own experiences. In his 1974 book, “The Dogs Of War,” Forsyth also famously wrote about an attempted West African coup. It, too, became a movie with Christopher Walken. Decades later, in 2009, Forsyth told NPR’s Scott Simon, he just found himself in the middle of a real coup attempt in the tiny African nation of Guinea-Bissau while researching his next book.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FORSYTH: They said, well, actually, the president’s been assassinated. So that was – you know, I thought, wow, this is what – I really do not need this.
MARX: Forsyth, then 70, had once again witnessed real life reflecting, but also once more influencing, his own fiction.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FORSYTH: This wasn’t going to be part of the story, but as it happened, I probably will. I may throw in the two assassinations, just create scenes in which they happen, because they just happened to be there, and I witnessed them.
MARX: Freddie Forsyth sold 75 million books and is survived by two sons. For NPR News, I’m Willem Marx in London.
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