A sizzling, sexy biography of the blockbuster author whose life of excess was as racy as one of his own novels.
During his fifty-year career Harold Robbins, the godfather of the airport novel, sold approximately 750 million copies of his books worldwide. His seventh novel,The Carpetbaggers,a steamy tale of sex, greed, and corruption loosely based on the life of Howard Hughes, is the fourth most read book in history. As decadent as his fiction was, however, his life was just as profligate. Over the course of his five-decade career, Robbins spent money as quickly as he earned it, reportedly wasting away $50 million on everything from booze and drugs to yachts and prostitutes. Based on extensive interviews with family members and friends, including Larry Flynt and Barbara Eden,Harold Robbinsexamines the remarkable life of the man who gave birth to the cult of the modern bestseller and introduced sex to the American marketplace.From Publishers WeeklyHarold Robbins (1916–1997), whose potboilers sold 750 million copies worldwide during his lifetime, was born into a middle-class Brooklyn Jewish family. But as Wilson relates in this shallow biography, Robbins often fabricated a past as Czar Nicholas's illegitimate son or a lonely orphan who became a sailor indulging in gay sex on a submarine. Early works like the autobiographical, Depression-eraA Stone for Danny Fishershowed talent, and his fictionalized portrait of Howard Hughes,The Carpetbaggers, was made into a film and catapulted him to fame. But, Wilson says, Robbins's novels grew schlockier and repetitive as he wrote to sustain his cocaine-fueled lifestyle of fancy cars and mansions, prostitutes and gambling. Particularly damning is the testimony of Robbins's Simon & Schuster editor, Michael Korda, who recalls a bitter, sneering writer tossing off pages in exchange for a check.Hustlerfounder Larry Flynt's inflated claim that Robbins was as much a celebrity as Tom Cruise is repeated by Wilson with scant skepticism or analysis, and it's doubtful that this lackluster effort will gain Robbins new fans. This misfire by the Edgar-winning biographer of Patricia Highsmith (Beautiful Shadow) is more an extended magazine article intended to titillate than a serious biography or a fruitful dissection of the American bestseller. 8 pages of photos.(Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“Meticulously researched...Wilson debunks the lies in between a thorough accounting of Robbins' career as novelist and Hollywood celebrity.” —Chicago Sun Times“Besides answering nearly every question about its subject…[Harold Robbins is] also better written than an of Robbins's own behemoths…I doubt any future biography of Robbins will equal this one…Wilson is impressively…determined to uncover the reality behind Robbins's fabulations.” —New York Times Book Review“[An] interesting book for anyone who wonders what set of circumstances produced Robbins and his wild imagination.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times“Andrew Wilson's even-handed biography is both fascinating and deeply disturbing. Wilson illuminates the emotional bankruptcy of a self-made man who got everything he ever wanted -- but who died bitter and alienated. You don't have to remember or even to have read Robbins to relish this spooky bio. Wilson has written a cultural exploration of post-World War II America, when the country appeared to cast off the last shackles of Puritanism in order to embrace guilt-free hedonism—sex, drugs, money and pleasure.”—USA Today“Reading this excellent biography, you can't help but think of ' The Great Gatsby, ' as though stacks of silk shirts or plates of lettuce with a lot of fish roe on it would be the ticket -- to what? -- to something bigger, stranger, wilder, weirder. ...Andrew Wilson has written perhaps a better biography of Robbins than Robbins deserved...a fascinating narrative.”—Washington Post“The writer's life is almost as fantastic and riveting as his debauchery-driven plots.”—Columbus Dispatch“A titillating portrait.”—Sacramento Bee“A frank look at the not-always-likable man behind the blockbusters.”—Bookpage“Today’s Hollywood movers and shakers think they know how to throw wild parties - but none of them can hold a candle to best-selling author Harold Robbins.”—New York Post“[A] lot of juicy stuff.” —Chicago Sun Times