Frances Donaldson, 87; Her Biography of Edward VIII Was Basis for Movie

Frances Donaldson, who wrote an award-winning biography of Edward VIII, the king who abdicated in 1936 to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Warfield Simpson, has died. She was 87.

Lord John Donaldson said his wife died Sunday of cancer at their London home.

The 1974 biography of the king of England won the Wolfson Literary Award and was the basis for the 1981 HBO movie “Edward and Mrs. Simpson.” Lady Donaldson served as script supervisor for the TV film, which won an Emmy for “Masterpiece Theater.”

Lady Donaldson’s first biography, in 1957, was “Freddy Lonsdale,” a loving but candid portrait of her father, a playwright and bon vivant.

Her other books included a sketch of author Evelyn Waugh, a biography of humorist P.G. Wodehouse and a history of the Royal Opera House.

When her “P.G. Wodehouse: A Biography” was published in 1982, a year after the humorist’s centenary observance, Charles Champlin wrote in a Los Angeles Times review: “It is worth waiting for because it is a superior piece of biographical research and a careful job of literary placement.”

Lady Donaldson wrote two autobiographies, “Child of the Twenties” in 1959 and “A Twentieth Century Life” in 1992.