Douglas Howard Gresham (born November 10, 1945)
[ is an American British stage and voice-over actor, biographer, film producer, and executive record producer. He is one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.
]
Early life
Gresham was born in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, the son of writers William Lindsay Gresham
William Lindsay Gresham (; August 20, 1909 – September 14, 1962) was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly well-regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is '' Nightmare Alley'' (1946), which was adapted to film i ...
and Joy Davidman
Helen Joy Davidman (18 April 1915 – 13 July 1960) was an American poet and writer. Often referred to as a child prodigy, she earned a master's degree from Columbia University in English literature at age twenty in 1935. For her book of po ...
. William Gresham was the author of '' Nightmare Alley'', the classic of American noir literature, while Joy Davidman was best known for her book ''Smoke on the Mountain'', about the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
. The couple were separated in 1954, and Joy moved to England with her two sons.[Sibley (1985), pp. 108–12.] His mother was of Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
descent.
C. S. Lewis
Gresham's mother had become friends with C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...
through correspondence, and the friendship blossomed, eventually leading to marriage in 1956. Gresham's mother died of cancer in 1960, and Lewis continued to raise Douglas and his elder brother David. (Lewis had adopted the boys when he married, and ''The Horse and His Boy
''The Horse and His Boy'' is a novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1954. Of the seven novels that comprise ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956), ''The Horse and His Boy'' was the fifth to be published. The nov ...
'' is dedicated to them both.) At Lewis's death in 1963, his estate went to his brother Major Warren Hamilton Lewis. The Major in turn passed the estate to Douglas and David ten years later.
Douglas Gresham is a Christian, as were Lewis and his mother, while David returned to the Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
of their mother's ancestors while still a child in Lewis's home. Lewis made an effort to find kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
food for him.
Career
Gresham hosted Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family (FOTF or FotF) is a fundamentalist Protestant organization founded in 1977 in Southern California by James Dobson, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The group is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations ...
's radio adaptations of his stepfather's most famous works, and his interest in media versions thereof was later shown again when he was named co- producer for the series of theatrical films adaptations of ''The Chronicles of Narnia
''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...
''; he also made a cameo in the first installment as a radio newscaster, the second
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...
as a " Telmarine crier" and the third
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (d ...
as a slaver.
Gresham came on as executive producer of recording artist Meg Sutherland's debut album in 2014, successfully signing her to Sprig Music in March with producer Christopher Hopper.
Personal life
Douglas Gresham and his wife, Merrie, lived at Rathvinden House in Leighlinbridge
Leighlinbridge (; ) is a small town on the River Barrow in County Carlow, Ireland. The N9 National primary route once passed through the village, which was by-passed in the 1980s. It now lies on the R705 regional road.
It covers the town ...
, County Carlow
County Carlow ( ; ga, Contae Cheatharlach) is a county located in the South-East Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Carlow is the second smallest and the third least populous of Ireland's 32 traditional counties. Carlow Cou ...
, Ireland, before moving to their house in Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
in 2008. They have five children: three sons, James, Timothy, and Dominick, and two daughters, Lucinda, and Melodie. Prior to this he owned four farms in Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
, Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, with his wife Merrie and their four children.
Gresham has written an autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
, ''Lenten Lands'', of his life to the age of 28 in 1973. A fictionalized young Douglas Gresham is a character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
in the 1993 film '' Shadowlands'', in part derived from ''Lenten Lands''. In the film, Gresham is played by the American actor Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Francis Mazzello III (born September 21, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Tim Murphy in '' Jurassic Park'', Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries '' The Pacific'', Dustin Moskovitz in ''The Social Network'', ...
. There is no character derived from Douglas' brother David in the film or in the stage play on which the film was based, although both Douglas and David were portrayed in the original teleplay (1985) on which the stage play was based.
Douglas Gresham acknowledged in a 15 November 2005 interview on NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
that he and his brother, David, had been estranged, although in a 4 December 2005 interview he did say that they had been in email contact.
/ref>
Bibliography
* ''Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis'', Macmillan (USA 1988)
* ''Jack's Life:The Life Story of C.S. Lewis'', Broadman and Holman (2005)
References
* Sibley, Brian (1985). ''C. S. Lewis: Through the Shadowlands'', Fleming H. Revell,
External links
More to Doug Gresham than Narnia
*
"In Lenten Lands"
''Le Penseur Réfléchit'', the Mr. Renaissance bi-weekly newsletter, 2001–2002 archive
with Douglas Gresham
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gresham, Douglas
1945 births
Living people
C. S. Lewis
British biographers
British film producers
20th-century biographers
British Christians
British people of American descent
British people of Polish-Jewish descent
British people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent