How ‘Grande Dame of Blockbusters’ Barbara Taylor Bradford made her £160m fortune – including selling £10m flat to star
“I’VE ordered champagne” were the first words Barbara Taylor Bradford said to me when I interviewed her in 2015.
We met at The Dorchester, her home from home whenever she visited London, where she was holding court in a quiet corner of the swanky hotel.
Dressed to the nines, with a perfectly made up face and coiffed hair that hinted at her twice-weekly visits to the stylist, she looked nothing like the 81 years old she was at the time.
Barbara, who died on Sunday, aged 91, following a short illness at her home in New York City, was every inch the best-selling author honoured by Queen Elizabeth with an OBE for her contribution to women’s literature.
Clearly beloved by the hotel staff, they fussed around her, making sure she had everything she needed.
And she was kind and courteous in return — as she was to all who met her.
Although we had chatted on many occasions on the phone, this was the first time we had spoken face to face.
You would imagine someone who had sold 90 million books — making a rumoured £160million from sales — might be bored by the interview process and give standard, predictable answers.
But she was a wonderful, generous hostess and although we were there to chat about her latest release, she asked me questions and genuinely wanted to know about my life.
The interview lasted well over two hours — and remains one of my favourite encounters.
Known for writing incredible sweeping sagas, her first novel A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, when she was 46.
It was an immediate hit.
Legions of fans
A rags to riches story, it told how Emma Harte, a servant in rural Yorkshire, went on to head up a huge business empire.
It sold more than 30million copies and was adapted into a 1984 TV miniseries, starring Jenny Seagrove as young Emma, Deborah Kerr as her in later life and Liam Neeson as her friend Shane “Blackie” O’Neill.
It was the beginning of a career spanning more than 40 years and 40 novels — each received rapturously by her legions of adoring fans.
Our latest meeting was in 2019, to talk about her book, In The Lion’s Den, but it was a very different encounter.
Her beloved husband, Robert — who she met when she was 28 — had recently died from a stroke aged 92.
Again, we met for tea at The Dorchester, and although she tried to put on her game face, it was clear that Barbara was utterly broken.
Tears weren’t far away, as she held my hand and told me his last words to her had been, “I love you”.
But despite her obvious distress, she was determined to continue making the most of her remaining years — plus Bob had told her never to stop writing so she was keen to honour his wishes.
Although her books sold tens of millions of copies, making her one of the world’s wealthiest writers, and she loved her luxuries, she stayed grounded — with fish and chips her favourite meal, coated in lashings of malt vinegar.
Even when she discovered her solidly working-class mum was probably the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of Ripon, a Yorkshire aristocrat, she never took a DNA test.
Yet she was rumoured to have maintained the heating of a lake at her former Connecticut home, which a farmer had installed to keep swans warm in winter.
And she sold her 13-room Manhattan apartment for £6.7million in 2013 to actress Uma Thurman.
But right until the end, Barbara grafted — and her work ethic was second to none.
She followed a strict routine, beginning at 6am where she used a typewriter to bash out her novels.
She also read the papers every day and had opinions about everything from the royals to politics and the importance of reading.
It was why she was so happy to be an ambassador for charities and not-for-profit organisations including the UK’s National Literacy Trust, Literacy Partners in the US, Women In Journalism and Reporters Without Borders.
Always a supporter of women, she twice chaired the judges for The Sunday Times Write Stuff competition which encouraged the next generation of female fiction writers.
Barbara was born and bred in Leeds and came from a working-class family, who adored literature.
During one of our book-related chats she told me she was “force-fed books from a very young age”, and was reading confidently by four years old.
At primary school — where she was in the same class as future author and playwright Alan Bennett — she dreamed of being a writer.
She had her first story published in a children’s magazine when she was ten.
‘Powerhouse of glamour’
Her first job, aged 15, was in the Yorkshire Evening Post’s typing pool.
Determined to follow her dream to be a reporter, she surreptitiously slipped her stories into the sub-editor’s tray.
When the editors realised, they promoted her and she became the paper’s only female reporter at the time.
By the age of 18, she was its Woman’s Editor.
While working at the paper she met a fellow journalist who she said was “lanky and dishevelled with acne”.
He kept trying to talk to her, she said, even after she turned him down for a date at the cinema — it was actor Peter O’Toole.
Always ambitious, Barbara moved to London aged 20 when Fleet Street called.
Her career went from strength to strength and she worked as fashion editor of Woman’s Own magazine.
In 1961, when she was 28, Barbara met her husband, Robert, a German- born successful American film producer.
They married on Christmas Eve, 1963, and moved to New York.
There, Barbara wrote for an interior decoration column that was syndicated to 183 newspapers — even though Robert was wealthy enough that she did not need to work.
Her first books were about home design.
They included The Complete Encyclopedia Of Homemaking Ideas in 1968.
She also wrote a string of entries in the How To Be The Perfect Wife series.
When A Woman Of Substance was published, Barbara was over the moon.
She had the success she had always dreamed of.
She said she wrote books about sexy, scrappy, hard-working women.
“What I really wanted to do was to write about a very strong woman, because I’m strong,” she told an interviewer in 1983.
“That doesn’t mean I’m tough or hard but I have the strength to meet adversity, not to give in,” she said.
Actress Jenny Seagrove, 67, paid tribute to a “dear friend” and “powerhouse of glamour and warmth”.
She said: “Success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess.
“She never, ever forgot that she was just a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good.”
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said: “She was a natural storyteller, deeply proud of her Yorkshire roots. She would regale us of her time working on the Yorkshire Evening Post with fellow reporter Keith Waterhouse and Peter O’Toole, the dawn of the Soho cafe society, and the many happy years shared with the love of her life, her husband, Bob.
Generous and thoughtful
Other friends included Sean Connery, Christopher Plummer, Boris Johnson and Joan Rivers.
She was also a huge fan of Queen Elizabeth.
Maria Boyle, who worked as Barbara’s personal PR for more than 15 years, said: “Book signings were always busy, queues were guaranteed.
“Fans would travel from afar, bringing old copies of her novels for her to sign while buying the latest release.
“One American reader even brought a copy of A Woman Of Substance with a bullet hole in it. Barbara was alarmed, asked what had happened and the lady said her husband shot the book as she was reading it so much. Her books became like Bibles to many.“
When I wrote A Woman Of Substance I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to write about a woman warrior who conquers the world and smashes the glass ceiling’. But I did want to write about them in a positive way
Barbara
“Readers would frequently tell her their story and cite how her books changed their lives — ‘It inspired me to set up a business’, ‘It helped me through some dark times’ or ‘It gave me courage to change my career’.
Barbara told one paper: “When I wrote A Woman Of Substance I didn’t sit down and think, ‘I’m going to write about a woman warrior who conquers the world and smashes the glass ceiling’. But I did want to write about women in a positive way.
“At the time there were a lot of very sexy books out there but the women didn’t come out of them very well.”
One of Barbara’s favourite shops in London was Fortnum & Mason and she would visit every time she was in the capital — where she would order gifts for those she worked with.
And me. I wasn’t the only one to be touched by her kindness.
Maria said: “Barbara gave generously.
“She waived royalties, donated fees and contributed work freely.
“During the pandemic, she gifted one of her books so it could be adapted for blind readers and wrote a 25,000-word short story for a national newspaper when asked for just 5,000.
“In the interview which went alongside it, Barbara quoted her hero Winston Churchill, telling them to “KBO” (Keep Buggering On) — and she did that throughout her own life.”
She was frequently described as the “grand dame of blockbusters”, “Queen of the genre”, and she absolutely was.
My lasting memories of Barbara were she was kind, generous and thoughtful.
She had an incredible work ethic and was one of those rare people who are both interested and interesting.
May she rest in peace.
- For more on Barbara’s books, go to barbarataylorbradford.com.