Margaret Landon

Margaret Landon
Born	Margaret Dorothea Mortenson September 7, 1903(1903-09-07) Somers, Wisconsin
Died	December 4, 1993(1993-12-04) (aged 90) Alexandria, Virginia
Education	B.A. Wheaton Collgee, Education (1925)
Occupation	Writer, Presbyterian missionary
Spouse	Kenneth Landon

Margaret Landon (September 7, 1903 – December 4, 1993) was an American writer best remembered for Anna and the King of Siam, her best-selling 1944 novel of the life of Anna Leonowens which eventually sold over a million copies and translated into more than twenty languages. In 1950, Landon sold the musical play rights to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who created the musical The King and I from her book. A later work, Never Dies the Dream, about her own experiences, appeared in 1949.

Life

Born Margaret Dorothea Mortenson to Anenus Duabus "A.D." and Adelle Mortensen in Somers, Wisconsin, she was one of three daughters in a devout Methodist family. The family moved to Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated from Evanston Township High School in 1921.

She attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, graduating in 1925. She taught at a school for a year, then married Kenneth Landon, whom she knew from Wheaton, and in 1927 they signed up as Presbyterian missionaries to Thailand.

Between 1927-1937, Landon raised her three children while running a mission school in Trang and read extensively about the country. During her readings, she learned about Anna Leonowens, the late-19th Century governess to the Siamese royal family. When the Landon family returned to America in 1937, she soon began writing articles and then began researching material for a book on Leonowens.

Part of a series on Protestant missions to Southeast Asia

Adoniram Judson

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The family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1942 when Kenneth Landon joined the United States Department of State as an expert adviser on Southeast Asia. In 1947, Kenneth Landon published Southeast Asia, Crossroad of Religion, subsequently reprinted in 1969 and 1974. He also wrote The Chinese in Thailand and Siam in Transition.

Landon's fourth child, Kenneth, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C. He followed the lead of his parents and took up writing about his own field of interest, releasing God of Glory: The Promise of Relationship in 1992.

Margaret Landon was married 67 years. She died in Alexandria, Virginia, December 4, 1993, aged 90, leaving 13 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She is interred in Wheaton Cemetery in Illinois.

Lawsuit over 1972 TV series Anna and the King

In 1972, Twentieth Century Fox produced a non-musical TV sitcom for CBS based on The King and I film called Anna and the King, with Samantha Eggar taking the part of Anna Leonowens and Yul Brynner reprising his role as the king. Landon charged the producers with "inaccurate and mutilated portrayals" of her literary property and unsuccessfully sued for copyright infringement.^[1][2] The series was unsuccessful and was canceled after 13 episodes.

References

1. ^ Lawrence Meyer, 'Court And “The King”', Washington Post, 21 November 1972, p. B2
2. ^ Landon v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 384 F. Supp. 450 (S.D.N.Y. 1974), in Donald E. Biederman, Edward P. Pierson, Martin E. Silfen, Janna Glasser, Law and Business of the Entertainment Industries, 5th edition, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2006, pp. 349-356

External links

Biography portal

• Page on Kenneth & Margaret Landon Collection of papers at Wheaton
• Margaret Landon at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Landon, Margaret
Alternative names	Mortenson, Margaret Dorothea (birth name)
Short description	Writer, missionary
Date of birth	September 7, 1903
Place of birth	Somers, Wisconsin, United States
Date of death	December 4, 1993
Place of death	Alexandria, Virginia, United States