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Bradford died Sunday at her home in New York, a spokesman said Monday.
Starting from Substantive womanpublished in 1979, Bradford averaged nearly one book a year as one of the world’s most popular and richest writers, her net worth estimated at more than $US200 million ($307 million), and her fame such that her picture appeared on a postage stamp in 1999. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II. she was awarded the OBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).
Her books have been published in 40 languages and sold more than 90 million copies worldwide.
With titles like Breaking the rules and The law of willshe specializes in stories of women fighting for love and power in a man’s world. Her favorite book was The women in his lifeinspired 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.
A native of Leeds, West Yorkshire, she was an only child in a working-class family who developed an early love of books. As a girl, she published a story in a local magazine. At the age of 16, she left school against her parents’ wishes to become a journalist for Yorkshire Evening Post.
She will work as a fashion editor for the next 30 years Woman’s Own Magazinecover various beats for the London Evening News and, in the United States, write a syndicated interior design column.
Although she wrote children’s stories and advice books, novels were her dream. Substantive woman was a multi-generational chronicle of the travails and triumphs of merchant baroness Emma Harte, which would feature in several of Bradford’s other novels. The book has sold more than 30 million copies and was the basis of a 1984 television miniseries starring Jenny Seagrove as a young Emma and Deborah Kerr as a 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 then so am I.
“I have to be, like a business woman. And I’m a damn good business woman.”
Bradford and Emma Harte had more than money in common: they both had family secrets. As a young woman, Emma became pregnant with a man who refused to marry her and gave birth to a daughter.
Years later, Bradford learned through her biographer that her own 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.
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 never diluted her warmth and humor or her ability to connect with everyone she met, whether she was a cleaning lady or a princess,” Seagrove said.
“She never, ever forgot that she was just a Yorkshire lass who worked hard and did good. RIP dear friend.”
Bradford had a strict writing routine: at work at her IBM Lexmark typewriter until 6 a.m., taking a break around 1 p.m., then back to writing no later than 6 p.m.
According to the 2006 authorized biography, by Piers Dudgeon Substantive womanBradford has more than adapted to her middle-aged wealth, living in a 500-square-foot apartment overlooking the East River in Manhattan, collecting Impressionist art and enjoying top-ups of pink champagne poured by her Moroccan 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 ($15.4 million).
Over the years, she met many other famous people. Bradford befriended Sean Connery before appearing in his first James Bond film and recalled advising him, thankfully in vain, that he should lose his Scottish accent if he wanted to succeed.
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Around the same time, she met a fellow journalist at Yorkshire Evening Post.
He was “skinny and disheveled with acne”, and tried to talk to her even after she turned him down for a movie date.
“Years later, (Evening fast editor) Keith Waterhouse and I were at an event where producer Sam Spiegel introduced the star of his new film, she said The Guardian in 2021
“The most handsome man I’ve ever seen came out, dressed like Lawrence of Arabia. Keith said, ‘Don’t you wish you’d gone to take a picture with him now?’ I never got over Peter’s transformation.”
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