Love stories: Erich Segal, Julie Garwood, Nancy Richards-Akers

Lecture 8

Erich Wolf Segal (born June 16, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American author, screenwriter, and educator.

The son of a rabbi, Segal attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and traveled to Switzerland to take summer courses. He attended Harvard University, graduating as both the class poet and Latin salutatorian in 1958, after which he obtained his master's degree and a doctorate.

He was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton University. He now is teaching at Wolfson College, Oxford.

In 1967, from the story by Lee Minoff, he wrote the screenplay for The Beatles 1968 motion picture, Yellow Submarine.

In the late 1960s, Segal collaborated on other screenplays, and also had written a synthetic romantic story by himself about a Harvard and a Radcliffe student, but failed to sell it. However, literary agent Lois Wallace at the William Morris Agency suggested he turn the script into a novel and the result was a literary and motion picture phenomenon called Love Story. A New York Times No. 1 bestseller, the book became the top selling work of fiction for all of 1970 in the United States, and was translated into more than 20 languages worldwide. The motion picture of the same name was the number one box office attraction of 1971.

Erich Segal went on to write more novels and screenplays, including the 1977 sequel to Love Story, called Oliver's Story.

He has published a number of scholarly works as well as teaching at the university level. He has acted as a visiting professor for the University of Munich, Princeton University, and Dartmouth College. He has written widely on Greek and Latin literature. His novel The Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard batch of 1958, was also a bestseller, and also won literary honour in France and Italy. Doctors was another New York times bestseller from Segal.

Segal has been married to Karen Marianne James since 1975; they have two daughters.

Love Story is a 1970 romantic drama film written by Erich Segal based on his 1970 best-selling novel, and directed by Arthur Hiller. The film, well-known as a tear-jerking tragedy, is considered one of the most romantic of all time by the American Film Institute (#9 on the list).

The novel tells the story of Oliver Barrett, IV, who comes from a long line of wealthy and well-respected Harvard University graduates. Partly to break the traditional Ivy League mold, the Harvard student meets and falls in love with Jennifer Cavilleri, a working-class, quick-witted Radcliffe College student. Upon graduation from college, the two decide to marry against the wishes of Oliver's father, who thereupon severs ties with his son.

Without his father's financial support, the couple struggles to pay Oliver's way through Harvard Law School. Graduating third in his class, Oliver takes a position at a respectable New York law firm, while Jenny teaches at a private school.

With Oliver's income and Jennifer's salary as a teacher, the pair of 24-year-olds decide to have a child. After failing to conceive, they consult a medical specialist, who, after repeated tests, informs Oliver that Jenny is ill and will soon die.

As instructed by his doctor, Oliver attempts to live a "normal life" without telling Jenny of her condition. Jenny nevertheless discovers her ailment after confronting her doctor about her recent illness. With their days together numbered, Jenny begins costly cancer therapy, and Oliver soon becomes unable to afford the multiplying hospital expenses. Desperate, he seeks financial relief from his father. Instead of telling his father what the money is truly for, Oliver leads him believe that he needs it because he has had an affair which led to a pregnancy.

From her hospital bed, Jenny speaks with her father about funeral arrangements, and then asks for Oliver. She tells him to avoid blaming himself, and asks him to embrace her tightly before she dies.

The novel also includes the double meaning of a love story between Oliver and his father, highlighted by the scene between Oliver and his father at the end of the book. When Mr. Barrett realizes that Jenny is ill and that his son borrowed the money for her, he immediately sets out for New York. By the time he reaches the hospital, Jenny is dead. Mr. Barrett apologizes to his son, who replies with something Jenny once told him: "Love means not ever having to say you're sorry."

Julie Garwood (born in 1946 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American writer of over twenty-five romance novels in both the historical and suspense subgenres. Over thirty million copies of her books are in print, and she has had at least 15 New York Times Bestellers. She has also begun writing a novel for young adults under the pseudonym of Emily Chase.

Garwood's novel For the Roses was adapted for the television feature Rose Hill.

Garwood was raised in Kansas, the sixth of seven children in a large Irish family. After having a tonsillectomy at age six, Garwood was a sickly child for years. Because she missed so much school, she did not learn to read as the other children her age did. She was eleven before her mother realized that other children had been doing her homework, and that Garwood was simply unable to read. A math teacher, Sister Elizabeth, devoted the entire summer that year to teaching Garwood how to read, and how to enjoy the stories she was reading. This teacher had such an impact on Garwood's life that she named her daughter Elizabeth.

While studying to be an R.N., Garwood took a Russian history course and became intrigued by history, choosing to pursue a double major in history and nursing. A professor, impressed by the quality of her essays, convinced Garwood to take a year off of school to write. The result was a children's book, A Girl Called Summer, and her first historical novel, Gentle Warrior.

Although Garwood enjoyed her writing, she was not intending to pursue a career as an author. As a young wife and mother she took several freelance writing jobs, and wrote longer stories to amuse herself. After her youngest child started school, Garwood began attending local writers' conferences, where she soon met an agent. The agent sold both her children's book and her historical novel, and soon the publisher requested more historical romances.

Garwood's novels are particularly known for the quirkiness of her heroines, who tend to have an ability to get lost anywhere, clumsiness, and a "charming ability to obfuscate and change the direction of conversations to the consternation, frustration, but eventual acceptance of the other party." She is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, and one of her books deals with spousal abuse. Her novels are very historically accurate, and Garwood has been known to scour the library at the University of Kansas to find three sources confirming a fact before she includes it in one of her books.

In fifteen years of writing, by 2000 Garwood had penned 15 New York Times Bestsellers with over 30 million copies of her books in print. Despite her success in the historical romance genre, Garwood ventured into a new genre and began writing contemporary romantic suspense novels. Like her historicals, these contemporaries still focus on family relationships, whether between blood relatives or groups of friends who have styled themselves as a family.

Her first contemporary offering, Heartbreaker, has been optioned for film and was serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine.

Garwood admits that she does not read romance novels, primarily so that she does not have to worry about unintentional plagiarism. Instead, she enjoys reading general fiction and mystery novels, but looks forward to the day she retires so that she can catch up on the romance novels written by other authors. She currently lives in Leawood, Kansas. She has three children.

Major works: Gentle Warrior (1985); A Girl Named Summer (1986); Prince Charming (1994); Crown's Spies Series; Lairds' Brides Series; Highlands' Lairds Series; Rosehill Series.

NANCY RICHARDS-AKERS 1951-1999

Like artists in any medium, writers create what they conceive to be beautiful. In her books, Nancy Richards-Akers created a world of strong, caring people whose love builds a safe harbor in a sea of turmoil. By giving form to her desires, Richards-Akers gave her readers hope that love could accomplish miracles. In a universe of random motion and disinterested disaster, hope changes the odds. A person with hope will strive to better their condition. Maybe that person won't reach his or her goal, but no one stands a chance if they don't try.

Nancy Richards-Akers lived in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three children. In her childhood she was the little girl with the overactive imagination and in her youth spun endless fantasies about love. She was a chronic daydreamer. She had written numerous Regency Romances, including Lord Fortune's Prize, Lady Sarah's Charade, and the award-winning Miss Wickham's Betrothal.

Richards-Akers wrote about love and intimate relationship so convincingly that her husband became jealous of her thinking that she took all that from her own experience with men, and killed his wife. The death of romance novelist Nancy Richards-Akers at the hands of her husband on June 5, 1999 once again hammered home the point of view that writers are not what they write.

Major works: A Season Abroad (American Regency Romance) (1988); Miss Wickham's Betrothal (1992); Lord Fortune's Prize (1993); The Heart and the Heather (1994); Wild Irish Skies (1997).

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