Million-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford, known for ‘A Woman of Substance’, has died at the age of 91

NEW YORK (AP) – Barbara Taylor Bradford, the British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the “A Woman of Substance” saga and wrote a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies, has died. She was 91 years old.

Bradford died on Sunday at her home in New York, a spokesman said on Monday.

Beginning with “A Woman of Substance” published in 1979, Bradford averaged almost a book a year as one of the most popular and richest authors in the world, her net worth was estimated at over $200 million, and her fame was so high that her image it appeared on a postage stamp in 1999. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II awarded her an OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

Her books have been published in 40 languages ​​and have sold over 90 million copies worldwide.

With titles like “Breaking the Rules” and “Act of Will,” she specialized in stories of women fighting for love and power in a man’s world. Her favorite book 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.

She came from Leeds, West Yorkshire, and was an only child in a working-class family who fell in love with books at an early age. As a girl, she published an article in a local magazine. At the age of 16, she left school against her parents’ wishes and became a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post. For the next 30 years, she worked as a fashion editor at Woman’s Own Magazine, covered various beats for the London Evening News, and in the United States wrote a column on interior design.

Although she wrote children’s stories and guides, her dream was novels. “A Woman of Substance” was a multi-generational chronicle of the hardships and triumphs of retail baroness Emma Harte, who appeared in several of Bradford’s other novels.

The book sold over 30 million copies and was the basis of a 1984 television miniseries starring Jenny Seagrove as young Emma and Deborah Kerr as late-life Emma.

“And if you want to meet the real Emma, ​​meet me,” Bradford told London’s Telegraph in 2009. “Emma must have been tough and ruthless at times, but so was I. I have to be like that as a businesswoman. And I’m a damn good businesswoman.

Bradford and Emma Harte had more in common than just 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 her biographer that her own mother had been 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.

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

“Success never diminished her warmth and humor or her ability to connect with every person she met, whether a cleaning lady or a princess,” Seagrove said. “She never, ever forgot that she was just a Yorkshire girl who worked hard and achieved success. RIP, dear friend.

Bradford had a rigorous writing routine: at 6 a.m. she worked at an IBM Lexmark typewriter, took a break around 1 p.m., and then returned to writing until 6 p.m. at the latest. According to the authorized 2006 biography, “The Woman of Substance” by Piers Dudgeon, Bradford more than adjusted to her fortune in middle age, living in a 5,300-square-foot apartment overlooking the East River in Manhattan, collecting works of Impressionist art and savoring with refills of pink champagne poured by her Moroccan man. butler. When the Bradfords put their apartment up for sale in 2010, the asking price was just under $19 million. (They sold it to Uma Thurman in 2013 for $10 million).

She has met many other stars over the years. Bradford became friends with Sean Connery before he appeared in his first James Bond film, and remembers him advising him, fortunately in vain, to get rid of his Scottish accent if he wanted to succeed.

Around the same time she met another journalist at the Yorkshire Evening Post. He was “skinny and disheveled with acne” and tried to talk to her even after she refused to give him a movie date.

He was Peter O’Toole.

“Years later, (Evening Post editor) Keith Waterhouse and I were at an event where producer Sam Spiegel introduced the star of his new film,” she told The Guardian in 2021. “The most beautiful man I had ever seen came out dressed as Lawrence of Arabia. Keith said, “Don’t you regret not going to the movies with him now?” I never came to terms with Peter’s transformation.

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