Nancy Mars Freedman (born July 4, 1920, in Evanston, Illinois, died
August 10, 2010, in Greenbrae, California) was an American feminist
novelist, the co-author of Mrs. Mike.Freedman (née Nancy Mars) was a
professional child actress for touring stage plays, and she met her
husband Benedict Freedman in 1940 in Hollywood, where he was working
as a writer and she was trying to break into movies. They married in
1940 despite her poor health, which began with a bout of rheumatic
fever at age three and lasted her entire life.She began writing novels
with her husband in 1947 with Mrs. Mike, the fictionalized story of
their friend Katherine Mary Flannigan who married a Mountie and moved
from Boston to the Canadian wilderness. It became a bestseller and
inspired a 1950 film adaptation. The two Freedmans wrote nine more
novels together, and Freedman wrote several more by herself. Her later
works, including Mary, Mary Quite Contrary (1968) and Sappho: The
Tenth Muse (1998) have been called "ardently feminist." Sappho was
later made into an opera composed by Daniel Steven Crafts, the
libretto by Nancy and Benedict, with the premiere sung by their
daughter Deborah in 1998. Her book Joshua Son of None (1973) was a
political thriller about the clandestine cloning of a young
assassinated President (strongly implied to be, although never
actually named as, John F. Kennedy).Freedman's son, Michael Freedman,
became a noted mathematician, and her two daughters also work in
academia as a musician at the University of California, Berkeley and
as the director of the medical humanities program at the University of
California, Irvine.
August 10, 2010, in Greenbrae, California) was an American feminist
novelist, the co-author of Mrs. Mike.Freedman (née Nancy Mars) was a
professional child actress for touring stage plays, and she met her
husband Benedict Freedman in 1940 in Hollywood, where he was working
as a writer and she was trying to break into movies. They married in
1940 despite her poor health, which began with a bout of rheumatic
fever at age three and lasted her entire life.She began writing novels
with her husband in 1947 with Mrs. Mike, the fictionalized story of
their friend Katherine Mary Flannigan who married a Mountie and moved
from Boston to the Canadian wilderness. It became a bestseller and
inspired a 1950 film adaptation. The two Freedmans wrote nine more
novels together, and Freedman wrote several more by herself. Her later
works, including Mary, Mary Quite Contrary (1968) and Sappho: The
Tenth Muse (1998) have been called "ardently feminist." Sappho was
later made into an opera composed by Daniel Steven Crafts, the
libretto by Nancy and Benedict, with the premiere sung by their
daughter Deborah in 1998. Her book Joshua Son of None (1973) was a
political thriller about the clandestine cloning of a young
assassinated President (strongly implied to be, although never
actually named as, John F. Kennedy).Freedman's son, Michael Freedman,
became a noted mathematician, and her two daughters also work in
academia as a musician at the University of California, Berkeley and
as the director of the medical humanities program at the University of
California, Irvine.
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