Harold Robbins Biography and List of Works

American writer who has published over 20 best-selling books, which have been translated into 32 languages and have sold over 50 million copies. Among his best-known works is The Carpetbaggers. Loosely based on the life of Howard Hughes, it takes the readers from New York to California, from the prosperity of the aeronautical industry to the glamour of Hollywood. It's prequel, The Raiders, appeared in 1995.

"You got something going inside you. Maybe it's the way you look at yourself. Or society. You're sceptical about everything. And still you believe in people. It doesn't make sense. Not to me anyhow."
(from Dreams Die First, 1977)

Harold Robbins was born in New York and spent his childhood in an orphanage. He was educated at the George Washington High School and after leaving he worked in several jobs. Robbins made his first million at the age of twenty by selling sugar for the wholesale trade. At the outbreak of World War II, Robbins lost his fortune and moved to Hollywood where he worked for Universal Pictures. His first book Never Love a Stranger appeared in 1948. It drew on his own life as an orphan on the streets of New York and created controversy with its graphic sexuality. The Dream Merchants (1949) told the tale of Hollywood's film industry, from its first steps up to the era of sound. Again Robbins blended his own experiences, historical facts, melodrama, sex, and action into a fast-moving story. "He leaned across the table. "Look, Warren, first of all, this picture will be the real thing. It won't run just twenty minutes, it will run more than an hour. Then there is something new that's just been developed. It's called the close-up."

All eyes turned to her as she opened the door. For a moment she felt self-conscious, then with her model's walk she glided to the centre of the room and slowly turned around.
'She's got a good clean figure,' the produced said.
'Not enough tits for me,' the pratfall kid chortled. 'I'm a T-man, myself.'
(from Stiletto, 1960)

From 1957 Robbins worked as a full-time writer. Although he failed to find success with literary critics, he believed he would be recognized as the world's best author sooner or later. Of his many works perhaps the most acclaimed is A Stone for Danny Fisher (1951), a coming-of-age story set in Depression-era New York. Other books include The Betsy (1971), centring on a shrewd business minded race car driver, Memories of Another Day (1979), a story of a union leader with connections to the real life character of Jimmy Hoffa, The Storyteller (1982), a story of a poor boy who gains world fame as a writer, and Descent from Xanadu, (1984), where a rich industrialist tries to find remedy for aging.

'The truth,' I said. 'Can't any of you tell the truth? Do you always have to manipulate others doing your dirty work for you when the truth is so much simpler?'
'That's show business,' Guy said glibly.
'I don't like it,' I said.
'You better get used to it if you're going to stay in it.'
(from The Lonely Lady, 1976)

Robbins was married five times. From 1982 he was obliged to use wheelchair because of hip trouble but he continued writing. Several of his books have been made into films. Robbins died in 1997. His posthumously published novel, The Predators (1998), was a combination of A Stone for Danny Fisher and The Carpetbaggers. It follows the life of Jerry Cooper, a scrappy Jewish kid who fights his way up and out of New York's infamous Hell's Kitchen and into the world of international business.

"It is far too simplistic to argue that each time a woman reads a magazine advocating heterosexual marriage, or a Barbara Cartland novel, a rubber fetishist goes and buys a favourite magazine or a teenager buys a Batman comic that they are equally vulnerable, equally exploited, equally duped. To patronize every reader of Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins is to grossly misjudge and diminish the subject."
(Clive Bloom in Cult Fiction, 1996)

Never Love A Stanger, (1948)