Olivia Goldsmith

From Freepedia

Olivia Goldsmith (1949 - January 15, 2004) was an American author, best known for her first novel The First Wives Club (1992). She was born Randy Goldfield in Dumont, New Jersey, but changed her name to Justine Goldfield and later to Justine Rendal. She took up writing following a divorce in which she said her husband got almost everything (including her Jaguar and the country house). Before becoming a writer, she was a partner at the management consultants Booz Allen Hamilton in New York.

Many of her books can be described as revenge fantasies; a constant theme is the mistreatment of women by the men they love, but with the women coming out the winners in the end.

Controversially, in late 1996 (the same in which that the film version of The First Wives Club was released and earned over $100 million at the box office), Goldsmith said, in response to an Entertainment Weekly reporter's question, that her favorite event of 1996 was when Bob Dole fell off a stage during a campaign function.

She also wrote several books for children, which were published under the name "Justine Rendal."

Goldsmith died from complications from plastic surgery. Her final two books will be published posthumously.

Bibliography

• The First Wives Club (1992), made into a movie starring Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and Goldie Hawn in 1996. The story deals with three friends who have been left by their husbands for younger women. After a friend (also a "first wife") kills herself, they decided to extract revenge on their ex-husbands.
• Fashionably Late (1993)
• Flavor of the Month (1994)
• Marrying Mom (1996)
• The Bestseller (1996)
• Switcheroo (1998)
• Young Wives (2000)
• Bad Boy (2001) in which a trendy Seattle reporter does an 'extreme-makeover' job on her best friend - a nerdy male computer programmer - to transform him 'from zero to hero.'
• Pen Pals (2002) in which an ambitious Wall Street financier agrees to take the rap for her boss in an insider dealing case. She finds herself abandoned by both her boss and her fiance, and ends up serving prison time.
• Wish Upon A Star (2004) in which a low-level secretary is invited to go to London with one of her firm's top partners, only to be cheated upon by him there, forcing herself to carve a new life for herslef in a strange city.