Jilly Cooper, the prolific British author whose steamy Rutshire Chronicles novels were the basis of Disney+ comedy-drama Rivals, has died aged 88.
She passed away suddenly on Sunday morning after a fall, according to a statement from her agent, Curtis Brown, and an outpouring of grief has begun following her death.
“Mum was the shining light in all of our lives,” read a statement from her children, Emily and Felix. “Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds. Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock. We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can’t begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.”
Rivals, on which Cooper was an executive producer, has become a huge hit for Disney+. Following the launch of Season 1 a year ago, Season 2 has in production ahead of a 2026 launch, with Happy Prince again making the show.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of the irreplaceable Dame Jilly Cooper – a trailblazer in British literature celebrated for her joyful, naughty and insightful writing in a world often too serious,” said Lee Mason, Executive Director of Scripted, Disney+ EMEA. “It has been a privilege to bring her beloved world of Rivals to television. Our thoughts are with Jilly’s family, friends and fans as we raise a glass – of champagne, naturally – to her extraordinary legacy.”
Felicity Blunt, Cooper’s agent at Curtis Brown, noted how her stellar publishing career had been supplemented as EP on Rivals, saying: “Her suggestions for story and dialogue inevitably layered and enriched scripts and her presence on set was a joy for cast and crew alike.”
Indeed, Cooper was present on set and many press events and screenings for the show, which follows the battle for control of an independent TV channel in the 1980s. It stars David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Victoria Smurfit, Alex Hassell, Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean, Emily Atack and Danny Dyer.
“The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago,” added Blunt. “Jilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome show-jumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black.
“You wouldn’t expect books categorised as ‘bonkbusters’ to have so emphatically stood the test of time but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things – class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility. Her plots were both intricate and gutsy, spiked with sharp observations and wicked humour. She regularly mined her own life for inspiration and there was something Austenesque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms. But if you tried to pay her this compliment, or any compliment, she would brush it aside. She wrote, she said, simply ‘to add to the sum of human happiness’. In this regard as a writer she was and remains unbeatable.”
Happy Prince’s founder and Chief Creative Officer, Dominic Treadwell-Collins, and its Creative Director, Alex Lamb, Creative Director said “every moment spent with Jilly Cooper” on the set of the Disney+ show was “bloody marvellous.”
“We are broken-hearted,” the wrote. “Jilly was and always will be one of the world’s greatest storytellers and it has been the most incredible honour to have been able to work with her to adapt her incredible novels for television. Crawling around on her sitting room floor with storylines on pieces of paper, sitting up late at her kitchen table holding hands with love and our tummies with laughter, receiving scoldings and heaps of wisdom in equal measure, watching her eyes sparkling as she sat behind the monitor on set watching Rutshire brought to life – every moment spent with Jilly Cooper was bloody marvellous. We have been so lucky to be able to call her our friend – and know that her legacy will endure in her writing, her television and the encouragement to have fun that she gave us all.”
Cooper’s publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr at Transworld, which is part of the Penguin Random House, said the first Rutshire Chronicles novel, Riders, “Changed the course of popular fiction forever.”
“Ribald, rollicking and the very definition of good fun, it, and the ten Rutshire novels which followed it, were to inspire a generation of women, writers and otherwise, to tell it how it was, whilst giving us a cast of characters who would define a generation and beyond,” he wrote.
“Working with Jilly Cooper over the past thirty years has been one of the great privileges and joys of my publishing life. Beyond her genius as a novelist, she was always a personal heroine of mine for so many other reasons. For her kindness and friendship, for her humour and irrepressible enthusiasm, for her curiosity, for her courage, and for her profound love of animals.
A private family funeral will be held, in line with Cooper’s wishes. The family has asked for people to respect their privacy and allow them to grieve. A public service of thanksgiving will be held in coming months in Southwark Cathedral in London “to provide an opportunity for everyone that knew Jilly to celebrate her extraordinary life,” they said.
Details on those arrangements will follow “in due course.”
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