Robert Ludlum was born on May 25, 1927 in New York. After earning a B.A. in Drama at Wesleyan University, where he met his wife Mary Ryducha, Robert Ludlum served in the Marines Corps and later worked as a theatrical actor and producer until the late 1960s.
Only in 1971 Robert Ludlum made his debut as a writer with the novel “The Scarlatti Inheritance”. It contains some elements that became typical of this author’s spy novels with the presence of a wealthy and powerful group of people trying to manipulate a series of events without hesitating to commit murders to prevent secrets dangerous to them from being disclosed.
In 1972, Robert Ludlum published his second novel, “The Osterman Weekend”, which was adapted into the 1983 movie with the same name, the last directed by Sam Peckinpah. It was Ludlum’s first novel to be adapted for cinema or television and over the years was followed by many others.
For Robert Ludlum it became normal to publish one if not two novels per year but initially his 1973 novel “Trevayne” and his 1974 one “The Cry of Halidon” were published under the pen name Jonathan Ryder because at marketing level publishing more than one novel a year seemed negative. “The Road to Gandolfo” (1975) was published under the pseudonym Michael Shepherd.
After several other successes, in 1980 Robert Ludlum published the novel “A Bourne Identity”, the first about the character of Jason Bourne, a secret agent who loses his memory after being severely wounded. This novel in which the psychological thriller element is very important was adapted into the 1988 TV movie with the same name and in the 2002 movie with the same name. However, apart from the original concept the movie has a plot very different from the novel’s.
The following years brought other successes to Robert Ludlum with several other novels including the other two of the Jason Bourne’s series: “The Bourne Supremacy” (1986) and “The Bourne Ultimatum” (1990). The movies produced with the same titles are even more different from them than the first one, so apart from the presence of the same protagonist they have virtually nothing to do with the literary version.
In the second half of the 1990s, Robert Ludlum’s activity became less regular between health problems and his wife’s death. He got married again with Karen Dunn and in the following years a number of novels were written in collaboration with other writers. The Covert-One series started with the 2000 novel “The Hades Factor” written with Gayle Lynds to continue with a series of other novels also written by other writers.
Robert Ludlum died on March 12, 2001 for the consequences of wounds suffered in a fire burst in his villa on February 10. The circumstances of that event are worthy of one of his stories, so much that years later Kenneth Kearns, the author’s nephew, openly accused Ludlum’s wife of killing him.
Some novels were posthumously published as written by Robert Ludlum only or in collaboration with other writers. In the following years Eric Van Lustbader resumed the Jason Bourne series and has so far published 10 more novels about the famous secret agent’s adventures.
Robert Ludlum’s novels have been published in 40 countries in 33 languages. Their success is due to the author’s ability to tell international conspiracies with diabolical masterminds and sometimes unexpected heroes because in some cases they’re common people rather than secret agents who have to fight against apparently overwhelming forces. These heroes have to travel, sometimes run, all over the world, sometimes coming to little-known places underlined by local people who speak in even less known languages.
The plots that are developed in Robert Ludlum’s novels have elements over the top for the big conspiracies but sometimes seem even too realistic for the motivations of members of governments, armed forces, and various government agencies interested in controlling their citizens rather than serving them. On these occasions terrorists are also used for shadowy purposes that have nothing to do with the ideologies they are acting on. It’s a mixture of elements that for decades have captured the interest of millions of readers around the world.
