Clive Cussler

Author

THE BEST-SELLING US author Clive Cussler, who has died at 88, wove personal details and spectacular fantasies into his page-turning novels about an underwater explorer named Dirk Pitt, whom he dispatched on exotic missions involving shipwrecks, treachery, espionage and beautiful women, in such popular works as Cyclops, Night Probe and his commercial breakthrough, Raise The Titanic.

Born an only child in 1931 in Aurora, Illinois, and raised in Alhambra, California, Cussler’s name and writing persona have the air of a pseudonym, but in fact he was named by his parents after the British actor, Clive Brook.

He studied for two years at Pasadena City College before enlisting in the Air Force and serving as a mechanic and flight engineer during the Korean War.

In 1955, he married Barbara Knight, with whom he had three children. Through much of the 1960s, he worked in advertising, as a copywriter and creative director. Among the better known slogans he helped coin was, “It’s stronger than dirt,” for an Ajax laundry detergent campaign.

In his free time, he was writing fiction and moonlighting at a diving equipment shop, where his wife suggested he work to help gather material for his novels.

“When creating advertising, I had always looked at the competition and wondered what I could conceive that was totally different,” Cussler said in 1998.

“(James) Bond was becoming incredibly popular through the movies, and I knew I couldn’t match Ian Fleming’s style and prose. So I was determined not to write about a detective, secret agent or undercover investigator or deal in murder mysteries. My hero’s adventures would be based on and under water.” Cussler claimed his worldwide sales topped 100m copies but in a legal battle with Crusader Entertainment, which alleged he had misrepresented his popularity, it was determined the number was closer to 40m.

The film version of his adventure, Sahara, came out in 2005 and starred Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. An adaptation of Raise The Titanic in 1980 was less successful. Despite a stellar cast of Jason Robards and Alec Guinness, it was a spectacular flop and reportedly prompted its producer, Lord Lew Grade, to observe that “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

In recent years, Cussler began working with co-authors and collaborated with his son, Dirk Cussler, on Poseidon’s Arrow, Crescent Dawn and Arctic Drift.

In addition to Dirk, he is survived by his second wife, Janet, daughters Teri and Dayna, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.