Barbara Taylor Bradford, bestselling novelist known for “A Woman of Substance,” dies at 91

Barbara Taylor Bradfordthe British journalist who became a publishing house in her 40s with the story “A Woman of Substance” and wrote more than a dozen novels that sold tens of millions of copies, has died. He was 91 years old.

Bradford died Sunday at his home in New York City, a police spokesman said Monday. A website has also been added to his website.

Starting with the title “A Woman of Substance,” published in 1979, Bradford averaged a book a year as one of the most famous and richest writers in the world, his profit is estimated at more than 200 million dollars and his fame was so high that his picture appeared. 1999 postage stamp. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the OBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

His books have been published in 40 languages ​​and have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide.

With titles such as “Breaking the Rules” and “An Act of Will,” she specialized in stories of women struggling for love and power in a man's world. Her favorite among her books was “The Women In His Life,” inspired by her husband's escape from the Nazis.

Bradford was married for 56 years to German-born film producer Robert Bradford, who died in 2019.

Born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, he was an only child in a working-class family who developed an early love of books. As a girl, she had a story published in a local magazine. At the age of 16, he left school against his parents' wishes to become a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post. Over the next 30 years, she would work as a fashion editor for Woman's Own Magazine, cover various compositions for the London Evening News and, in the United States, write a corresponding column on interior design.

Although she wrote children's stories and advice books, novels were her dream. “A Woman of Substance” was a multi-generational account of the travails and triumphs of Emma Harte, who would be included in several other Bradford novels. The book has sold more than 30 million copies and was the basis for a 1984 television series starring Jenny Seagrove as young Emma and Deborah Kerr as late Emma.

“And if you want to meet the real Emma, ​​meet me,” Bradford told London's Telegraph in 2009. “Emma had to be tough and ruthless at times: but so am I. I have to be, as a businesswoman. And I'm a good businesswoman.”

Bradford and Emma Harte were connected by more than money: they both had family secrets. As a young woman, Emma became pregnant by a man who refused to marry her and gave birth to a daughter. Years later, Bradford learned from his biographer that his mother was born out of wedlock. It is now believed that Bradford's maternal grandfather was Frederick Oliver Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon and owner of the Studley Royal estate in Yorkshire, now a World Heritage Site.

Seagrove, who befriended Bradford after starring in the miniseries, described her as a “powerhouse of glamor and warmth” and a “force of nature” who stayed true to her roots.

“Success didn't diminish his warmth and humor or his ability to connect with everyone he met, be it a cleaner or a princess,” Seagrove said. “She never forgot that she was a Yorkshire girl who worked hard and did good. RIP dear friend.”

Bradford had a strict writing process: at work behind his IBM Lexmark typewriter at 6 a.m., break for 1 p.m., and return to writing until 6 p.m., at the latest. According to the 2006 authoritative biography, Piers Dudgeon's book, “The Woman of Substance,” Bradford eventually lived up to her fortune, living in a 5,300-square-foot apartment overlooking Manhattan's East River, collecting Impressionist art and enjoying a refill of pink champagne poured by his Morocco. supplier. When the Bradfords sold their house in 2010, the asking price was less than $19 million. (They sold it to Uma Thurman in 2013 for $10 million).

Over the years, he met many other celebrities. Bradford befriended Sean Connery before he appeared in his first James Bond movie and he recalled advising him, thankfully, that he should lose his Scottish dictionary if he wanted to succeed.

Around the same time, he met another reporter at the Yorkshire Evening Post. He was “depressed and drunk with acne,” and kept trying to talk to her even after she refused to date him to the movies.

It was Peter O'Toole.

“Years later, (Evening Post editor) Keith Waterhouse and I were at an event where producer Sam Spiegel was introducing the star of his new film,” he told The Guardian in 2021. “Out came the most handsome man I ever saw. , dressed as Lawrence of Arabia Keith said: 'Don't you wish you could go to the pictures with him now?' I've never experienced Peter's transformation.”

According to an obituary on his website, when Bradford was recently asked what his epitaph would be, he replied: “He made his dreams come true.”

According to the funeral report, Bradford will be laid to rest next to her husband in Westchester Hills Cemetery, New York following a private funeral at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue.