Harold Robbins (May 21, 1916 – October 14, 1997) was an American author of popular novels. One of the
best-selling writers of all time, he wrote over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages.
Early life
Robbins was born Harold Rubin in New York City, the son of Frances "Fannie" Smith and Charles Rubin. His parents were well-educated Jewish emigrants from the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, his father from
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
and his mother from Neshwies (
Nyasvizh
Nesvizh, Niasviž ( be, Нясві́ж ; lt, Nesvyžius; pl, Nieśwież; russian: Не́свиж; yi, ניעסוויז; la, Nesvisium) is a city in Belarus. It is the administrative centre of the Nyasvizh District (''rajon'') of Minsk Region a ...
), south of
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
. Robbins later falsely claimed to be a Jewish orphan who had been raised in a Catholic boys' home.
Instead he was raised by his father, a pharmacist, and his stepmother, Blanche, in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
[
Robbins dropped out of high school in the late 1920s to work in a variety of jobs, including errand boy, bookies' runner, and inventory clerk in a grocers. He was employed by ]Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
from 1940 to 1957, starting off as a clerk and rising to an executive.
Work
His first book was ''Never Love a Stranger
''Never Love A Stranger'' is a 1958 crime and gangster film that is based on Harold Robbins' 1948 debut novel with the same title. The film was shot in black and white starring John Drew Barrymore and Robert Bray, and featuring a young Steve McQ ...
'' (1948). ''The Dream Merchants
''The Dream Merchants'' is an American novel written by Harold Robbins and published in 1949 in literature, 1949. Set in the early 20th century, the book is a "rags-to-riches" story of a penniless young man who goes to Hollywood, Los Angeles, H ...
'' (1949) was a novel about the American film industry
The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Ame ...
, from its beginning to the sound era
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
in which Robbins blended his own life experiences with history, melodrama, sex, and glossy high society into a fast-moving story. His 1952 novel, '' A Stone for Danny Fisher,'' was adapted into a 1958 motion picture ''King Creole
''King Creole'' is a 1958 American musical drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the 1952 novel '' A Stone for Danny Fisher'' by Harold Robbins. Produced by Hal B. Wallis, the film stars Elvis Presley, Carolyn Jones, Walter Matthau, ...
'', which starred Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
.
Among his best-known books is ''The Carpetbaggers
''The Carpetbaggers'' is a 1961 bestselling novel by Harold Robbins, which was adapted into a 1964 film of the same title. The prequel '' Nevada Smith'' (1966) was also based on a character in the novel.
In the United States, the term "car ...
'' – featuring a protagonist who was a loose composite of Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
, Bill Lear
William Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 – May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding Learjet, a manufacturer of business jets. He also invented the battery eliminator for the B battery, and developed the ...
, Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891 – February 27, 1958) was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Life and career
Cohn was born to a working-class Jewish family in New York City. His father, Joseph Cohn, wa ...
, and Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...
. ''The Carpetbaggers'' takes the reader from New York to California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, from the prosperity of the aeronautical industry to the glamor of Hollywood. Its sequel, ''The Raiders'', was released in 1995.
After ''The Carpetbaggers'' and ''Where Love Has Gone'' (1962) came ''The Adventurers'' (1966), based on Robbins's experiences living in South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, including three months spent in the mountains of Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
with a group of bandits. The book was adapted into a film in 1970, also titled '' The Adventurers''. He created the ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
television series '' The Survivors'' (1969-1970), starring Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and ...
and Lana Turner
Lana Turner ( ; born Julia Jean Turner; February 8, 1921June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Over the course of her nearly 50-year career, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a film actress, as well as for her highly publicized per ...
.
Robbins' editors included Cynthia White and Michael Korda
Michael Korda (born 8 October 1933) is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.
Early years
Born in London, Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove and the Hungarian ...
and his literary agent was Paul Gitlin.
In July 1989, Robbins was involved in a literary controversy when the trade periodical ''Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'' revealed that around four pages from Robbins' novel ''The Pirate'' (1974) had been lifted without permission and integrated into Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...
's novel ''The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec'' (1975), which had recently been re-published in the UK in a selection of early works by Acker titled ''Young Lust'' (1989). After Paul Gitlin saw the exposé in ''Publishers Weekly'', he informed Robbins' UK publisher, Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint (trade name), imprint of Hachette (publisher), Hachette.
History
Early history
The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs ...
, who requested that Acker's publisher Unwin Hyman withdraw and pulp ''Young Lust''. Representatives for the novelist explained that Acker was well known for her deliberate use of literary appropriation[—or ]bricolage
In the arts, ''bricolage'' ( French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media.
The term ''bricolage'' ...
, a postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
technique akin to plagiarism
Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...
in which fragments of pre-existing works are combined along with original writings to create new literary works. After an intervention by William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
—a novelist who used appropriation in his own works of the 1960s—Robbins issued a statement to give Acker retroactive permission to appropriate from his work, avoiding legal action on his publisher's part.[
Since his death, several new books have been published, written by ]ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...
s and based on Robbins's own notes and unfinished stories. In several of these books, Junius Podrug has been credited as co-writer.
From the Hodder & Stoughton 2008 edition of ''The Carpetbaggers'' "about the author" section:
In popular culture
Robbins is mentioned by name in '' Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' by Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in ''Star Trek'' serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as captain. Kirk leads ...
; his first officer Spock
Spock is a Character (arts), fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. He first appeared in the Star Trek: The Original Series, original ''Star Trek'' series serving aboard the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), USS ''Enterprise ...
mentions that Robbins was one of the 20th century "giants" of literature. Robbins is also mentioned by name by Basil Fawlty
Basil Fawlty is the main character of the 1970s British sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'', played by John Cleese. The proprietor of the hotel Fawlty Towers, he is a cynical and misanthropic snob, desperate to belong to a higher social class. His attempts ...
in the ''Fawlty Towers
''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television ...
'' episode "Waldorf Salad"; he refers to Robbins' work as "transatlantic tripe". The band Squeeze mentions "a Harold Robbins paperback" in their song " Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)". In Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
's 1970 post-apocalyptic '' Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It.'', a young couple uses a public library's copies of the collected works of Jacqueline Susann
Jacqueline Susann (August 20, 1918 – September 21, 1974) was an American novelist and actress. Her iconic novel, '' Valley of the Dolls'' (1966), is one of the best-selling books in publishing history. With her two subsequent works, '' The Lov ...
(who took inspiration from Robbins in writing her first novel in '' Valley of the Dolls'') as kindling after the woman's initial objection to burning library books to keep warm. She says, "OK, but what if we run out?" Her boyfriend says, "Don't worry, there's an entire shelf full of Harold Robbins."
Personal life
Robbins was married three times, first to his high school sweetheart, Lillian Machnivitz. In 1965 he wed Grace Palermo, who went on to pen an account of her life with Robbins in 2013. Divorced in the early 1990s, Robbins married Jann Stapp in 1992; they remained together until his death.
He spent a great deal of time on the French Riviera
The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...
and at Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...
until his death from respiratory heart failure, at the age of 81 in Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land a ...
. His cremated remains are interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City. Robbins has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...
at 6743 Hollywood Boulevard.
Novels
* ''Never Love a Stranger'', 1948 (made into the 1958 film)
* ''The Dream Merchants
''The Dream Merchants'' is an American novel written by Harold Robbins and published in 1949 in literature, 1949. Set in the early 20th century, the book is a "rags-to-riches" story of a penniless young man who goes to Hollywood, Los Angeles, H ...
'', 1949 (made into a 1980 TV miniseries)
* '' A Stone for Danny Fisher'', 1952 (made into the 1958 film ''King Creole
''King Creole'' is a 1958 American musical drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the 1952 novel '' A Stone for Danny Fisher'' by Harold Robbins. Produced by Hal B. Wallis, the film stars Elvis Presley, Carolyn Jones, Walter Matthau, ...
'')
* ''Never Leave Me'', 1953
* ''79 Park Avenue'', 1955 (made into the 1977 TV miniseries)
* ''Stiletto'', 1960 (made into the 1969 film)
* ''The Carpetbaggers
''The Carpetbaggers'' is a 1961 bestselling novel by Harold Robbins, which was adapted into a 1964 film of the same title. The prequel '' Nevada Smith'' (1966) was also based on a character in the novel.
In the United States, the term "car ...
'', 1961 (made into both the 1964 film of the same name and the 1966 film ''Nevada Smith
''Nevada Smith'' is a 1966 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Steve McQueen, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Arthur Kennedy and Suzanne Pleshette. The film was made by Embassy Pictures and Solar Productions, in association ...
'')
* '' Where Love Has Gone'', 1962 (made into the 1964 film)
* ''The Adventurers'', 1966 (made into the 1970 film)
* ''The Inheritors'', 1969
* ''The Betsy'', 1971 (made into the 1978 film)
* ''The Pirate'', 1974 (made into the 1978 TV movie)
* ''The Lonely Lady'', 1976 (made into the 1983 film)
* ''Dreams Die First'', 1977
* ''Memories of Another Day'', 1979
* '' Goodbye, Janette'', 1981
* ''The Storyteller'', 1982
* ''Spellbinder'', 1982
* ''Descent from Xanadu'', 1984
* ''The Piranhas'', 1986
* ''The Raiders'', 1995 (sequel to ''The Carpetbaggers'')
* ''The Stallion'', 1996 (sequel to ''The Betsy'')
* ''Tycoon
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
'', 1997
Posthumously published novels credited to Robbins
Works bearing Robbins name continued to appear after his death. The earliest three posthumous Harold Robbins novels (''The Predators'' (1998), ''The Secret'' (2000) and ''Never Enough'' (2001) are generally thought to have been completed by ghostwriters, but may have been partially or even substantially based on completed work or notes written by Robbins. Junius Podrug has been identified as the uncredited ghostwriter of ''Sin City'' (2002) and ''Heat of Passion'' (2003). From 2004-2011, a series of novels credited to Harold Robbins and Junius Podrug appeared, although they are strictly the work of Podrug, writing in Robbins' style.
* ''The Predators'', 1998
* ''The Secret'', 2000 (sequel to ''The Predators'')
* ''Never Enough'', 2001
* ''Sin City'', 2002
* ''Heat of Passion'', 2003
* ''The Betrayers'' (with Junius Podrug), 2004
* ''Blood Royal'' (with Junius Podrug), 2005
* ''The Devil to Pay'' (with Junius Podrug), 2006
* ''The Looters'' (with Junius Podrug), 2007, Madison Dupree No. 1
* ''The Deceivers'' (with Junius Podrug), 2008, Madison Dupree No. 2
* ''The Shroud'' (with Junius Podrug), 2009, Madison Dupree No. 3
* ''The Curse'' (with Junius Podrug), 2011, Madison Dupree No. 4
References
External links
*
*
Harold Robbins Quotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, Harold
1916 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American erotica writers
American male novelists
Burials at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City)
Jewish American writers
Writers from New York City
Writers from Palm Springs, California
Deaths from respiratory failure
Novelists from New York (state)
Novelists from California
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American Jews