Clive Cussler
Clive Cussler was an American author and marine archaeologist, best known for his adventure novels featuring the character Dirk Pitt. Born in 1931 in Aurora, Illinois, Cussler served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War before building a successful career as an advertising copywriter. He gained recognition for his fiction starting with the first Dirk Pitt novel in 1973, and his books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide, being translated into more than forty languages.
Cussler founded the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which reflects his passion for marine exploration and has helped discover numerous shipwrecks. His writing often combines thrilling action with elements of history and technology, portraying the protagonist’s efforts to thwart global disasters. In addition to the Dirk Pitt series, he wrote the NUMA Files, Oregon Chronicles, and Isaac Bell Adventures, collaborating with other authors on several projects. Some of his works have also been adapted into films and younger reader editions, broadening his audience. Cussler's contributions to literature and marine exploration have established him as a prominent figure in both fields.
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Clive Cussler
Writer
- Born: July 15, 1931
- Birthplace: Aurora, Illinois
- Died: February 24, 2020
- Place of death: Scottsdale, Arizona
Biography
Clive Eric Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, in 1931, and grew up in Alhambra, California. He attended Pasadena City College, then enlisted in the US Air Force during the Korean War, serving as an aircraft mechanic and engineer in the military transport service. After his discharge, he became an award-winning advertising copywriter and the creative director of two major advertising agencies.
His first published nonfiction work was The Sea Hunters, and in an unprecedented move by the Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, the book was substituted for a traditional dissertation, enabling Cussler to receive a doctorate of letters degree from that institution in 1997. Cussler is the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), named after the fictional federal NUMA agency in his immensely popular Dirk Pitt novels. The nonprofit group has an amazing record of finding more than sixty shipwrecked vessels, including the long lost Confederate submarine Huntley in 1995. Some accounts of NUMA’s activities appeared in the first and second Sea Hunters books as well as in a television series that aired in 2002.
Cussler is a member of the Explorers Club and received the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration. Like his famous character Dirk Pitt, Cussler has a collection of more than eight-five classic cars. He was married to Barbara Knight for more than forty years before her death in 2003. The couple had three children, including a son named Dirk who helped Cussler write Black Wind (2004) and five subsequent novels. Virtually every novel Cussler publishes appears on The New York Times best-seller list. It is estimated that more than 100 million copies of the Dirk Pitt novels are in print. Cussler’s novels appear in more than forty languages in more than one hundred countries, making him one of the most widely read adventure and thriller novelists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
The first Dirk Pitt novel was published in 1973, and twenty-three more have followed through 2016. Like James Bond in the novels by Ian Fleming in the 1950s and 1960s, Dirk Pitt is a strong, handsome superhero, with access to innovative technological developments and weaponry. He repeatedly is called upon to confront crisis situations that, if not stopped, are likely to cause global disasters. His dangerous missions often take place underwater, and although there are usually others on his team, he often faces deadly peril on his own. As a character, Dirk appeals to a wide variety of readers. A few of the Dirk Pitt novels have been adapted for young fans, starting with Shock Wave and Inca Gold in 1998. Two have been adapted to film, including Sahara (2005), starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. Cussler’s gripping high action novels can be counted on to provide information about various areas of the world while portraying corruption, greed, and a host of evils that need to be combated.
Cussler also has written the NUMA Files series with Paul Kemprecos and Graham Brown and the Oregon Chronicles series with Craig Dirgo, Jack Du Brul, and Boyd Morrison. These novels follow much the same action formula as Cussler’s other books, although the protagonists have not garnered the same fan appeal as Dirk Pitt. Cussler and Dirgo have written a guide to the Dirk Pitt series, Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed He also began the Isaac Bell Adventures in 2007 and the Fargo Adventures series in 2009.
Bibliography
Cannon, Peter. "Cussler's Hustling." Publishers Weekly 259.38 (2012): 16–17. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 June 2016.
"Clive Cussler’s Biography." Clive-Cussler-Books.com. Clive Cussler Books, n.d. Web. 21 June 2016.
Cussler, Clive. Interview by Lewis Burke Frumkes. "A Conversation with . . . Clive Cussler." Writer 109.9 (1996): 15. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 June 2016.
Minzesheimer, Bob. "Novelist/Adventurer Clive Cussler Is Still Going Strong." USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 10 July 2013. Web. 21 June 2016.
Rickett, Joel. "The Big Boys Are Back." Bookseller 5294 (2007): 22-23. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 June 2016.