Douglas Howard Gresham (born November 10, 1945)[ is an American British farmer, TV and Radio personality, 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, the son of writers William Lindsay Gresham and Joy Davidman. William Gresham was the author of Nightmare Alley, the classic of American noir literature, while Joy Davidman (of Jewish descent) was best known for her book Smoke on the Mountain, about the Ten Commandments. The couple separated in 1954, and Joy moved to England with her two sons, sending them to Dane Court preparatory school in Pyrford, Surrey.[Sibley (1985), pp. 108–12.]
C. S. Lewis
Gresham's mother, Joy Davidman, had become friends with C. S. Lewis through correspondence, and the friendship blossomed, eventually leading to marriage in 1956. Davidman 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 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 10 years later.
Douglas Gresham is a Christian, as were Lewis and his mother Joy,
Career
Gresham hosted Focus on the Family Radio Theatre's adaptations of his stepfather's most famous works, and he was named co-Film producer for the series of theatrical films adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia; he also appeared in a cameo role in the as a radio newscaster, the as a "Telmarine crier" and the 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.
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| 2005 | | | | Radio Announcer (voice) |
| 2006 | | | | Documentary on the bonus disc |
| 2008 | | | | Telmarine Crier |
| 2010 | | | | Slaver #1 |
| 2026 | Narnia | | | Television series working title in pre-production |
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Personal life
Gresham and his wife Merrie have five children, three boys and two girls. The youngest girl was adopted from an orphanage in Seoul, Korea. All their natural children were born in Australia. The first three (the boys) were born in Tasmania where they owned and ran a dairy farm. The family left Tasmania in 1972 and lived for some time near Perth in Western Australia before returning to Tasmania in 1977 so that the children could grow up in the country on another farm in the north-east near Ringarooma. After the boys had left home, the couple and the two girls moved to Ireland and lived at Rathvinden House in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland, before moving to their house in Malta in 2008.
Gresham has written an autobiography, Lenten Lands, of his life to the age of 28 in 1973. A fictionalized young Douglas Gresham is a character in the 1993 film Shadowlands, in part derived from Lenten Lands. In the film, Gresham is played by the American actor Joseph Mazzello. 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.
In November 2005, Gresham acknowledged in an interview on NPR that he and his brother David had been estranged,[ Jonathon Van Maren, C. S. Lewis and His Stepsons, The First Things, September 3, 2020]
Bibliography
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Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis, Macmillan (USA 1988)
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Jack's Life: The Life Story of C.S. Lewis, Broadman and Holman (2005)
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Sibley, Brian (1985). C. S. Lewis: Through the Shadowlands, Fleming H. Revell,
External links
