Best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote the acclaimed novel A Woman of Substance, has died, aged 91.
The British-American novelist died peacefully at her home on Sunday (24 November) following a short illness.
Bradford was a prolific writer, completing a total of 40 novels during her lifetime. All of her books – often centred on the lives of the glamorous and wealthy – went on to become worldwide bestsellers. Her debut novel, A Woman of Substance, was released in 1979 and sold over 30 million copies.
Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, in 1933, she attended nursery alongside the acclaimed playwright, Alan Bennett. The bestselling author started writing at age seven and was first published at age 10 – when her mother sold a story to a children’s magazine. The writer has credited much of her success to her parents, who she said were “instrumental” in supporting her career.
Beginning her writing career as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post aged 15, she became a reporter a year later, and by the age of 18 was the paper’s first woman’s editor.
Shortly after, she moved to London to become a columnist and editor on Fleet Street.
The author met Hollywood film and TV producer Robert Bradford in 1961, and the couple married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963. They eventually moved to New York in 1964 and remained together for 55 years until Robert died in July 2019.
Speaking about his death in an interview with The Guardian in 2021, she said “He had a stroke in the night. His last words were, ‘I love you.’ I’m so glad I told him, ‘I love you too, darling.’ A week later he was gone.”
One of the most successful fiction writers in the world, her books have sold more than 91 million copies to date and have been published in more than 40 languages and in 90 countries.
Ten of her books were adapted into TV films or dramas by her husband. A Woman of Substance starring Jenny Seagrove and Liam Neeson, became a global hit and two Emmy awards nominations. It broke records when it premiered on Channel 4 in 1985, attracting 13.8 million viewers.
Bradford was awarded an OBE by the late Queen for her contributions to literature in 2007.
In one of her last interviews, the author was asked what she would have inscribed on her epitaph, and she replied: “She made her dreams come true.”
