Our thoughts are with blockbuster romance novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford after the death of her beloved husband Robert Bradford this week.
The debonair German-born and French-educated American film producer, known to friends as Bob, passed away at age 94 on July 2 in New York after a short illness with Barbara, his wife of 55 years, at his side.
Bob, who was Jewish and born in Berlin, was smuggled out of Nazi Germany at age 8 after his father’s death in the ’30s and lived with a relative in the South of France. At the end of World War II, he moved to New York, and then to Hollywood, where Jessie L. Lasky, founder of Paramount Pictures, gave him his first job in movies.
He met British-born Barbara on a blind date in London in 1961, it was love at first sight and they married two years later.
They lived at New York’s River House for many years and recently moved to a Park Avenue co-op.
Barbara has sold over 88 million books since the publication of her first blockbuster, “A Woman Of Substance,” 40 years ago and has dedicated each of her novels to Bob in recognition of his key role in her life and her work.
One friend said, “Bob was absolutely devoted to Barbara, and so proud and supportive of her work.”
He handled all of her business interests worldwide, and produced nine of his wife’s books as miniseries and movies for NBC and CBS starring actors such as Sir Anthony Hopkins, Liam Neeson, James Brolin and Lindsey Wagner.
Up until his death, Bob had been planning a remake of the 1984 TV miniseries based on Barbara’s bestseller “A Woman of Substance.”
Services are planned for 12:30 p.m. on July 10 at the Riverside, 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, in Manhattan.