Nepedia
Back to Discover
Fluent Reader
🎨

Judith Krantz

arts Maturity 5-7 death dying Next article →

This article covers sensitive topics: death_dying. Parents can manage visibility in Parental Controls.

Judith Krantz was a famous American writer who loved stories about fashion and wealth. She was a novelist, a magazine writer, and a fashion editor. Her books were very popular and often focused on the glamorous lives of rich people. Her first big novel, Scruples, was published in 1978. It became a huge success on The New York Times bestseller list. This book helped start a new kind of romance story called a "bonkbuster." These stories often combined romance with themes of shopping and high fashion.

Krantz had a very interesting way of working. She started her career in magazines like Good Housekeeping. She worked there as a fashion editor and wrote many articles. Later, she moved to writing from home to spend more time with her family. She wrote many articles for magazines like Cosmopolitan and Ladies' Home Journal. Her writing style often moved between different worlds, like fashion and high society. She even wrote an autobiography in 2000 called Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl.

Her journey as a writer began much earlier than her first hit book. She was born in New York City on January 9, 1928. Her parents were Jack D. Tarcher and Mary Braeger. She went to Wellesley College after graduating from the Birch Wathen School at age 16. In college, she took a short-story class. A professor liked her writing but gave her a B because of her spelling. This experience made her stop writing fiction for 31 years.

Krantz became a very successful author with many big numbers to show her work. Her book Princess Daisy, published in 1980, earned her $5 million before it was even printed. Over 80 million copies of her books have been printed in total. Her stories have been translated into 50 different languages for readers everywhere. Many of her books were also turned into television movies or mini-series. Seven of her novels were adapted for the screen. Her husband, Steve Krantz, even helped produce some of them.

Her life was full of connections to famous people and places. After college, she lived in Paris and worked in fashion public relations. She met famous people like Marlene Dietrich and Orson Welles. She also met her husband, Steve Krantz, at a party hosted by Barbara Walters in 1953. They married in 1954 and had two sons named Tony and Nicholas. Krantz retired from writing in 1996 at the age of 70. She passed away on June 22, 2019, in Los Angeles.

419 words

Where will your curiosity go next?

Keep exploring at your chosen reading level.

More to explore

🔬 Go deeper

More advanced topics to explore

🪜 Step back

Simpler topics to build understanding

What is Nepedia?

A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.