Douglas Sutherland - Career

Career

Returning to London at the age of 26, Sutherland would observe that his first challenge as a civilian was sartorial. To this end, he was helped by Oscar Hammerstein, the American lyricist, who was a friend of his first wife Moyra Fraser, then a ballet dancer. Hammerstein presented him with his cast-off suits, and thus attired, he began working as a journalist for the Evening Standard, and later, the Daily Express.

Sutherland's life during this period is affectionately depicted in Portrait of a Decade, where he recalls many of the colourful characters of 1950s London, centred on Muriel Belcher's famous Colony Club in Dean Street, Soho. However, he is best remembered for his best-selling humour series which began with The English Gentleman, and was followed by The English Gentleman's Wife/Child/Mistress, and The English Gentleman Abroad. Although he later claimed that the English Gentleman no longer existed, his observations on the species remain classic period commentaries.

But there was also a deeply serious side to his writing. His highly-acclaimed biographies feature such widely contrasting personalities as the sporting Earl of Lonsdale (The Yellow Earl), and, with Jon Connell, founder of The Week magazine, the life of the international fraudster Emil Savundra, which won the Crime Writer's Silver Dagger Award for the best non-fiction crime book of the year.

In 1963, with Anthony Purdy, he published a book called Burgess and Maclean. At that time he had identified with total certainty that the fourth shadowy figure involved in the notorious spy ring of the 1950s was Sir Anthony Blunt. So sure was Sutherland that in the course of his research he approached Blunt for a meeting over a drink at the Travellers Club in London. Blunt's response was to threaten legal action should his name appear anywhere connected with the case. Further pressure was then placed on the authors from the highest level, and Sutherland and Purdy were obliged to suppress their information for reasons of national security. After Blunt's exposure some twenty years later, Sutherland immediately released The Fourth Man, the first full uncensored account of the intrigue.

Having married three times, Sutherland settled in Scotland with his third wife Diana. His latter years were marred by a dispute over the publishing royalties of the English Gentleman series, and he died at South Queensferry on 28 August 1995. His children include architect Charlie Sutherland, choreographer James Sutherland, comedy performer Jojo Sutherland and curator Adam Sutherland, director of Grizedale Arts.