Larry Collins (writer)

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John Lawrence Collins Jr. (September 14, 1929 – June 20, 2005) was an American writer.

Life

Born in

Cincinnati, Ohio, before being conscripted into the US Army. While serving in the public affairs office of the Allied Headquarters in Paris, from 1953 to 1955, he met Dominique Lapierre
with whom he would write several best-sellers over 43 years.

He went back to Procter and Gamble and became the products manager of the new foods division in 1955. Disillusioned with commerce, he took to journalism and joined the Paris bureau of United Press International in 1956, and became the news editor in Rome in the following year, and later the MidEast bureau chief in Beirut.

In 1959, he joined Newsweek as Middle East editor, based in New York City.[2] He became the Paris bureau chief in 1961, where he would work until 1964, until he switched to writing books.

In 1965, Collins and

Hitler's plans to destroy Paris should it fall into the hands of the Allies. The book was an instant success and was made into a movie in 1966 by director René Clément, starring Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford and Alain Delon
.

In 1967, they co-authored Or I'll Dress you in Mourning about the Spanish bullfighter Manuel Benítez El Cordobés.

In 1972, after five years' research and interviews, they published

Elie Chouraqui.[3]

In 1975, they published Freedom at Midnight, a story of the Indian Independence in 1947, and the subsequent assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It is said they spent $300,000 researching and still emerged wealthy.

The duo published their first fictional work,

Colonel Gaddafi. The book had such a shocking effect that the French President cancelled the sale of nuclear reactors to Libya,[citation needed] even though it was meant for peaceful purposes. Paramount Pictures
, which was planning a film based on the book, dropped the idea in fear that fanatics would emulate the scenario in real life.

In 1985, Collins authored

Manuel Noriega’s Panama. He also wrote Le Jour Du Miracle: D-Day Paris (1994) and Tomorrow Belongs To Us (1998). Shortly before his death, he collaborated with Lapierre on Is New York Burning?
(2005), a novel mixing fictional characters and real-life figures that speculates about a terrorist attack on New York City.

In 2005, while working from his home in

cerebral hemorrhage.[1]

Personal life

In 1966, Collins married a notable Egyptian named Nadia Sultan. They had two sons, Michael and Lawrence.[4]

Awards

Collins won the Deauville American Film Festival literary award in 1985, and the Mannesman Talley literary prize in 1989.

Works

Novels

  • ISBN 0-671-24316-0
  • Fall from Grace (Fortitude) (1985)
  • Maze (Dédale) (1989)
  • Black Eagles (Les aigles noirs) (1993)
  • Tomorrow Belongs To Us (Demain est à nous) (1998)
  • The Road to Armageddon (2003)
  • ISBN 1-59777-520-7

Non-fiction

Biographies
History

Adaptations

References

  1. ^ a b Barker, Dennis (June 22, 2005). "Larry Collins". The Guardian. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  2. ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (June 21, 2005). "Larry Collins Dies at 75; Author of 'Is Paris Burning?'". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  3. ^ Anderson, John (October 24, 2007). "O Jerusalem". Variety. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  4. ^ Oliver, Myrna (June 21, 2005). "Larry Collins, 75; Bestselling Coauthor of Books Blending History and Suspense". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.

External links

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