- Born
- Died
- Birth nameFrancis Kane
- Harold Robbins summed up his career best in a 1971 ITV documentary: "I'm the world's best writer--there's nothing more to say". This phenomenally successful author--over 750,000,000 copies of his books were sold worldwide, and most were adapted successfully for the screen. At fifteen, he left home to begin a series of low-paying jobs, including working as a numbers runner. At twenty, after buying options on farmers' produce, Robbins was a millionaire, but a move into sugar futures wiped him out. He next took a job as a shipping clerk with Universal Pictures warehouse in New York and was soon promoted to executive director for budget and planning. On a bet with a studio executive, Robbins wrote his personal favorite novel, Never Love a Stranger (Knopf, 1948), and other early works which achieved minor critical success. He soon devolved into a writer of more popular novels involving celebrity, sex, and violence, to the scorn of critics. His writings after 1960 reflected his personal life: six marriages, wild Hollywood parties, drug abuse. A stroke in 1982 left him with aphasia, although he continued to write, publishing his last novel, Tycoon, in 1997.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Adam anthony-adam@tamu.edu
- SpousesJann Stapp(February 14, 1992 - October 14, 1997) (his death)Grace Palermo(November 22, 1965 - February 7, 1992) (divorced, 2 children)Lillian Machnivitz(May 23, 1937 - 1962) (divorced)
- Taking the surname of his last foster parents, he originally used the name Harold Rubin, which he later changed to Robbins.
- Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 516-517. New York: Oxford University Press (2002).
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6743 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 14, 1977.
- Resided at one time in Gloria Swanson's former mansion.
- He spent a great deal of time on the French Rivera and at Monte Carlo before his death in Palm Springs, California on October 14, 1997.
- [on Ernest Hemingway] Hemingway was a jerk.
- I live this way, sometimes.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content