Author Whose Book Inspired Hit Disney+ TV Show Dies Suddenly: Jilly Cooper Was 88

Beloved British author Dame Jilly Cooper died on Oct. 5 after a fall. She was 88.

The Rutshire Chronicles author, who most recently served as an executive producer on Disney+’s adaptation of her 1998 novel Rivals, is remembered as a “shining light” by her children, Felix and Emily.

“Mum was the shining light in all of our lives. Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds,” they said in a statement, as per The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”

Cooper’s longtime agent, Felicity Blunt, added in another statement that the “privilege” of her career had been “working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.”

“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,” Blunt continued. “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,” added Blunt, “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.”

Cooper spent the final few years of her life working as an EP on Rivals, which premiered in October 2024 and stars David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Bella Maclean, Emily Atack, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson and Nafessa Williams.

“Her suggestions for story and dialogue inevitably layered and enriched scripts and her presence on set was a joy for cast and crew alike,” said Blunt of Cooper’s time on Rivals. “Emotionally intelligent, fantastically generous, sharply observant and utter fun Jilly Cooper will be deeply missed by all at Curtis Brown and on the set of Rivals. I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor. But I know she will live forever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.”