biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1916–97)
|
| biography:
| Writer, born in New York City, USA. At 15 he dropped out of George Washington High School, left his foster parents, and eventually became an inventory clerk in a grocery store. During the Depression he showed entrepreneurial flair by buying up crops and selling options to canning companies, and the canning contracts to wholesale grocers. He was a millionaire by the time he was 20, but speculation in sugar before the outbreak of World War 2 relieved him of his fortune. He became interested in writing and, drawing on his knowledge of street life, high finance, and Hollywood, produced a string of earthy best sellers including Never Love a Stranger (1948), A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952), and The Carpetbaggers (1961), which sold six million copies throughout the 1960s. Later novels included Dreams Die First (1977), Descent from Xanadu (1984), The Piranhas (1991), The Stallion (1996), and Tycoon (1997), and he completed Wishing Well just before his death. |
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