David Yallop

David Yallop
Born
David Anthony Yallop

(1937-01-27)27 January 1937
London, England
Died23 August 2018(2018-08-23) (aged 81)
London, England
OccupationWriter

David Anthony Yallop (27 January 1937 – 23 August 2018) was a British author who wrote chiefly about unsolved crimes. In the 1970s, he contributed scripts for a number of BBC comedy shows, including Minder.[citation needed] In the same decade he also wrote 10 episodes for the ITV court drama, Crown Court.

His book, In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I (1984), posited that Pope John Paul I, found dead at age 65 in his chambers barely a month after becoming pope in 1978, had been poisoned by secretive Masons who had infiltrated the Vatican and the Vatican Bank. Reviewers, and the Roman Catholic Church, dismissed the book as groundless conspiracy theory. The book made the New York Times Best Seller list for 15 weeks, was translated into multiple languages, and was repeatedly reprinted, selling over six million copies.[1]

In late 1989 he was sacked as a scriptwriter for EastEnders when he proposed killing some of the characters by means of an Irish Republican Army bomb. Yallop successfully sued the BBC for breach of contract.[2] He was also one of the co-authors of Graham Chapman's autobiography, A Liar's Autobiography (Volume VI).

Yallop suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years.[3] He died of pneumonia in London on 23 August 2018.[4]

  1. ^ Daniel E. Slotnik, "David Yallop, Who Wrote of Crime and Conspiracy, Dies at 81," The New York Times, September 14, 2018.
  2. ^ The Guardian, The cutting edge, 18 October 1993
  3. ^ "David Yallop, author who fought for Arthur Allan Thomas release, has died". Stuff. 1 September 2018. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  4. ^ Daniel E. Slotnik, "David Yallop, Who Wrote of Crime and Conspiracy, Dies at 81," The New York Times, September 14, 2018.