Judith Krantz Dead at 91

According to Variety, author Judith Krantz died of natural causes on June 22 at her Bel Air home where she was "surrounded by family, friends, and her four dogs."  

Krantz was almost fifty years old when she completed her first novel, Scruples, but the novel went on to top the New York Times bestseller list four months after its publication and launched a whole new career for its author.  Prior to Scruples, Krantz was a popular freelance writer for magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, and McCalls.  Her second novel, Princess Daisy, was considerably more lucrative for her than Scruples had been.  Also a number one bestseller, Princes Daisy even set the record for highest amount paid by a publisher for any novel up to that point - $5 million, plus another $3.2 million for the paperback rights. 

There are said to be some eighty million copies in fifty languages of her books now in print.  The author's roll continued when her third and fourth novels, Mistral's Daughter and I'll Take Manhattan also each topped the New York Times bestseller list.  Krantz went on to write a total of ten novels and an autobiography, Sex and Shopping: The Confession of a Nice Jewish Girl that was published in 2000.  Seven of her novels were adapted for television movies or series, and Krantz also wrote an original television miniseries called "Secrets" in 1992.  

I never read Judith Krantz and always thought of her as the female Harold Robbins, but no one can deny that she capably tapped into a style that was very popular among female readers in the eighties and nineties.  I'm sure that her fans remember her fondly and that they will miss her.