- published: 18 Feb 2011
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Pierre Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French novelist best known for two works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963) that were both made into award-winning films.
Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour. He used these experiences in The Bridge over the River Kwai, about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film by David Lean won many Oscars, and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two genuine authors had been blacklisted.
His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes, where intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, was adapted into a series of five award-winning films that spawned magazine versions and popular themed toys.
Born Pierre-François-Marie-Louis Boulle in Avignon, France, Boulle was baptised and raised as a Catholic, although later in life he was an agnostic[citation needed]. He studied at the prestigious École supérieure d'électricité (Supélec) where he received an engineer's degree in 1933. From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician on British rubber plantations in Malaya. While there he met a Frenchwoman who was separated from her husband. She was to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in French Indochina. During World War II she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship.
All of the guys in this town
Say get out of her way, slow down
You've never met Miss hit and run
She will break your heart in two
You don't know what she can do
Of any of the girls you meet
She's gonna lead you down a one way street
And then you're really hurting deep
You should have known better, you should have known better
You should have known better, you should have known better
I should have known better, I should have known better
You should have known better, you should have known better
She will break your heart in two
You don't know what she can do
Watch out fellas
she's gonna break your heart
She's gonna run - run
She will take you for a ride
And leave you hurtin' deep inside
And if you see her red light
And you think you should stop, you're dead right
You've never met Miss hit and run
You should have known better, you should have known better ....
She will break your heart in two
You don't know what she can do
She will take you for a ride