(1920- ) Also wrote as: Madeleine Brent
On May 13, 1963, the luckier readers of the daily newspapers in Great Britain were treated to the debut appearance of a remarkable new comic strip character, the luscious, lethal, seductive superspy Modesty Blaise. London-born Peter O’Donnell had been writing Fleet Street strip cartoons (“Garth,” “Tug Transom,” “Romeo Brown,” and others) for more than a decade when he began chronicling the adventures of the “female James Bond.” Of mysterious origins, traceable only to a displaced persons camp in the Middle East, Modesty’s back-story includes her youthful takeover of a Tangier-based international criminal organization known as the Network, which specializes in high-ticket theft, smuggling, and espionage-for-hire but pointedly abstains from dealings in drugs and vice, and never works against Her Majesty’s government (Miss Blaise’s adopted nationality after a brief marriage to a derelict Englishman). A freelance operative for British Intelligence, hooked on danger, working in close alliance with her platonic soul-mate and fellow adventure junkie Willie Garvin, Modesty takes on the hopeless cases and deadly threats that conventional law enforcement and bureaucratic espionage agencies are too hamstrung to tackle. She is beautiful and stimulating in appearance, cold ferocity joined to an inflexible will. Battling plots against humanity and various colorful villains, Blaise is a brilliant tactician and a hands-on opponent with an expertise in arcane, acrobatic martial arts and some devastating battle tactics of her own devising, including the Nailer— her technique for momentarily disabling the bad guys by suddenly stripping to the waist.
O’Donnell’s comic strip heroine was a tremendous hit. Modesty rode the James Bond bandwagon of the mid-’60s, but she had an independent appeal as well. Her arresting sexiness attracted male readers and her cool, powerful persona made her a favorite with women as well. Her popularity continued long after the superspy craze, for 38 years, in fact, until the strip folded on April 11, O’Donnell’s 81st birthday.
Within a year of the strip’s debut, O’Donnell was asked to write a screenplay for a Modesty Blaise motion picture. He then turned the script into a novel, which appeared to great success in 1965. The assigned director, Joseph Losey, had the original screenplay rewritten to the extent that O’Donnell would claim only one of his original lines remained in the finished film—a controversial (some loved it, some hated it) Pop Art spoof with Monica Vitti as the title character and Terence Stamp as Willie.
Having found it satisfying to flesh out his characters and expand on his plotlines in a way not possible in the daily strips, O’Donnell happily continued Modesty’s adventures in the novel form. Twelve topics were published between 1965 and 1985. After a 16-year hiatus, O’Donnell and his legendary heroine returned for a predetermined finale, Cobra Trap, a story collection that firmly and movingly concluded the long and beloved series. “I think the final story showed them up in their best colors,” O’Donnell said of Modesty and Willie’s farewell. “They’re still ingenious in what they did, still have a great rapport with each other, and I brought in characters readers have met over the years in various topics. I don’t have a regret at all.”
During the Modesty Blaise years O’Donnell maintained a second, pseudonymous career as romance novelist Madeleine Brent, the author of 10 highly acclaimed works (one of which, Merlin’s Keep, was named Romantic Novel of the Year in 1978). Although the milieu and style were light-years away from the espionage adventures of his other series, there was more than a touch of Modesty Blaise discernible in the spirited, independent heroines of O’Donnell’s romance fiction.
O’Donnell worked for the movies from time to time. His screenplays include the delirious Vengeance of She (1968) for Hammer Films.
Works
- Cobra Trap (2001);
- Dead Man’s Handle (1985);
- Dragon’s Claw (1978);
- I, Lucifer (1967);
- Impossible Virgin, The (1971);
- Last Day in Limbo (1976);
- Modesty Blaise (1965);
- Night of Morningstar, The (1982);
- Pieces of Modesty (1972);
- Sabre-Tooth (1966);
- Silver Mistress (1973);
- Taste for Death, A (1969);
- Xanadu Talisman (1981)
As Madeleine Brent:
- Capricorn Stone (1977);
- Golden Urchin (1986);
- Heritage of Shadows (1983);
- Kirkby’s Changeling (1975);
- Long Masquerade (1981);
- Merlin’s Keep (1977);
- Moonraker’s Bride (1973);
- Stormswift (1984);
- Stranger at Wildings (1975);
- Tregaron’s Daughter (1971)
