Harold Robbins

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.

Robbins was born Harold Rubin in New York City in 1916, the son of Frances “Fannie” Smith and Charles Rubin. His parents were well-educated Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, his father from Odessa and his mother from Neshwies (Nyasvizh), south of Minsk. 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.

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 from 1940 to 1957, starting off as a clerk and rising to an executive.

His first book was Never Love a Stranger (1948). The Dream Merchants (1949) was a novel about the American film industry, from its beginning to the sound era 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, which starred Elvis Presley.

Among his best-known books is The Carpetbaggers – featuring a protagonist who was a loose composite of Howard Hughes, Bill Lear, Harry Cohn, and Louis B. Mayer. The Carpetbaggers takes the reader from New York to California, 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, including three months spent in the mountains of Colombia with a group of bandits. The book was adapted into a film in 1970, also titled The Adventurers. He created the ABC television series The Survivors (1969-1970), starring Ralph Bellamy and Lana Turner.

Robbins’ editors included Cynthia White and Michael Korda and his literary agent was Paul Gitlin. …

Source: Article “Harold Robbins” from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.