Katherine Ashe

Katherine Ashe was born in Hollywood in 1943. Her father, Fredric Frank, was working then at the shipyards of San Pedro to rebuild the Pacific Fleet in WW II. At the end of the war he returned to his career as a screenwriter and staff writer for Cecil B. DeMille. His stories of research for Unconquered, The Ten Commandments and especially (later) El Cid fascinated her. Her kindergarten bus left her off at Paramount where, with Jerry Lewis, she barked at the kiosk full of leaping Doberman guard dogs, and, sitting on Papa deMille's lap, informed the formidable producer that it was ridiculous to have Gary Cooper rescue Claudette Colbert from the waterfall by grabbing onto a twig. Veracity was her aim even at age five.

After a start as a painter in New York, showing at the Dorsky and Braverman Galleries, then a publisher of fine art prints, Katherine married theater critic Peter Wynne and turned to writing stage plays, screenplays and radio plays on historical subjects.

In 1978 she began the extensive research project that has resulted in the four volume Montfort series on the life of Simon de Montfort, the founder of England's Parliament in 1258.

Of this historical novel series, Madeleine Cosman, founder of the Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the City University of New York, said, "Montfort is the finest work I know on the thirteenth century."

Katherine's plays include "An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe" commissioned by the New York City Historic House Trust, and "Johnny!" commissioned by The Celebration of American Labor 2000, on the rise of John Mitchell and his coal miners union opposing the monopolies of the coal/steel/railroad and banking industries circa 1900. Her radio theater works, commissioned by the New York State and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts and New Jersey Council for the Humanities, include "Vreesland" on the Dutch massacre of the Lenape Indians in 1644; "Being Murietta" on the California Gold Rush and a real Zorro, Joaquin Murrietta; and "The Richest Woman in the Western World" on the life of Eliza Jumel.

See Katherine's web site katherineashe.com and visit her Katherine Ashe Facebook pages.