Colleen McCullough, a former neurophysiological researcher at Yale who, deciding to write novels in her spare time, produced “The Thorn Birds,” a multigenerational Australian romance that became an international best seller and inspired a hugely popular television mini-series, died on Thursday on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she had made her home for more than 30 years. She was 77.
The cause was believed to have been kidney failure, her agent, Michael V. Carlisle, said. Ms. McCullough had been in declining health with a variety of ailments in recent years.
Published in 1977 by Harper & Row, “The Thorn Birds” is set against the sweeping panorama of the author’s native land and was described often in the American news media as an Australian “Gone With the Wind.” Spanning much of the 20th century, it centers on Meggie, the beautiful wife of a loutish rancher, and her illicit affair with Father Ralph, a handsome Roman Catholic priest.
“The Thorn Birds,” which has never been out of print, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 20 languages. In hardcover, it spent more than a year on the New York Times best-seller list; the paperback rights were sold at auction for $1.9 million, a record at the time.
The book was the basis of a 10-hour television production starring Richard Chamberlain as Father Ralph and Rachel Ward as Meggie. First broadcast in 1983 on ABC, “The Thorn Birds,” which also starred Christopher Plummer, Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Simmons, is among the most-watched mini-series of all time.
“The Thorn Birds” was only the second novel by Ms. McCullough, who, forsaking her scientific career, would write more than 20, though none sold nearly as well. Her most recent, “Bittersweet,” about the lives and loves of four sisters in Depression-era Australia, appeared last year.
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Ms. McCullough’s survivors include her husband, Ric Robinson; two stepchildren, Wayde Robinson and Melinda MacIntyre; and two step-grandchildren.
Her other novels include “A Creed for the Third Millennium” (1985), set in a dystopian future; “Morgan’s Run” (2000), about 18th-century Australia; “The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet” (2008), a sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” starring the middle Bennet sister, to whom Jane Austen had paid scant attention; and a series of crime novels featuring Carmine Delmonico, a detective in 1960s Connecticut.
Over the years, Ms. McCullough was often asked what she thought of the “Thorn Birds” mini-series, watched by more than 100 million people.
Her response packed her usual pith and punch.
“I hated it,” she told People magazine in 2000. “It was instant vomit.”
