Clive Cussler

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Clive Eric Cussler in conversation with soldiers in Afghanistan (2011)

Clive Eric Cussler (born July 15, 1931 in Aurora , Illinois , United States , † February 24, 2020 in Scottsdale , Arizona ) was an American writer .

In his novels, characters from the fictional organization “ National Underwater and Marine Agency ” (NUMA) experience fantastic adventures. His most famous hero is Dirk Pitt , who he created in 1973. In recent years he has also written several books together with the American author Paul Kemprecos about the new hero Kurt Austin in the NUMA Files and with Craig Dirgo and Jack du Brul the Oregon Files about their chairman Juan Cabrillo .

His third published book title Lifts the Titanic! ( Raise the Titanic ! , Viking Publishing, 1975) was the first major commercial success. However, the 1980 film was a failure, despite starring Jason Robards , Anne Archer and Alec Guinness .

In 2005 his novel Operation Sahara was filmed as a Sahara desert adventure with Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt in the lead role.

Life

Cussler was the only son of Eric Cussler, who immigrated from Germany after the First World War, and his wife Amy, née Hunnewell, who was born in St. Joseph ( Missouri ) in 1901 . Cussler's parents met in a dance club in 1929 and married on July 10, 1930, a good year before he was born.

In 1937, at the age of six, Cussler had to live under an oxygen tent for several days and almost died of pneumonia . Concerned about the health of the son, the father moved to the Alhambra in California because of the better climate , where Clive Cussler lived until the end of his school days. After school, Cussler enrolled at Pasadena City College , but after just two years he enlisted in the US Air Force and fought in the Korean War in his role as aircraft mechanic and flight engineer . Shortly before the end of the war, he met Barbara Knight, whom he married in Pasadena in October 1955 after retiring from active service . She passed away in January 2003.

After the birth of his daughter Teri, Cussler was first the owner of a gas station and then head of advertising for Richard's Lido Market . This started his career in the print media. His son Dirk was born in 1961 and then his daughter Dayna.

Since 1998 lived Clive Cussler in winter in Paradise Valley ( Arizona ) and Telluride ( Colorado ) for the remainder of the year.

In 1979, Clive Cussler founded a non-profit organization, which he named "NUMA" after the fictitious organization of his novels. NUMA aims to preserve maritime heritage through the discovery, archaeological exploration and conservation of shipwrecks . More than 60 wrecks have been cataloged, including the CSS Hunley , the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat during the American Civil War .

Cussler has over 20 consecutive New York Times - bestselling written. To date, he has reportedly sold more than 125 million copies of his books, translated into 40 languages ​​and available for purchase in more than 100 countries. From the State University of New York, he was awarded the doctorate Doctor of Letters for his non-fiction book The Sea Hunters .

The information that precedes some books is contradictory. In Night sample (1981) is said about the author "Clive Cussler carries the same adventurous life as his novel hero Dirk Pitt. In addition to his writing activities, Cussler hitchhiked through the southwestern United States, looked for gold mines, dived into the lonely lakes of the Rocky Mountains as a frogman for missing aircraft and now leads research expeditions into the depths of the sea to find famous sunken ships of America. "In Atlantis Found (1999), on the other hand, can be read: “After graduating, he worked for a long time as an aircraft engineer. After that he was Art Director for two of the largest advertising agencies in the USA. (...) Clive Cussler lives alternately in Colorado and Florida. "

plant

For his first draft book, Pacific Vortex , Cussler was unable to win a publisher. His second novel The Mediterranean Caper and the third Iceberg were published, but initially met with little interest. With his fourth novel, Raise the Titanic! Cussler made the breakthrough. In Raise the Titanic! he introduced the scheme of the subsequent Dirk Pitt books, which are very similar in their basic structure: a mixture of adventure and technology thriller, rounded off with villains , none of whom survive the end of the book, lost and lost ships and famous treasures under water and on land. In the introduction, the plot is tied to a historically based event that plays an essential role in the later course of the respective book.

The actions of the books are always self-contained and do not require any knowledge of the other novels; certain political results or changes are put into perspective again in later volumes. The mutual references between the books are minimal and limited to mentions of the adventures that have been passed. In almost every novel, a fictional or factual historical event plays a role, most often it is the story of a sunken or lost ship. From the novel Dragon (The Ajima Conspiracy), a cameo of the author occurs in many novels of the Dirk Pitt series and in the novel Spartan Gold .

Dirk Pitt

The main character of these novels is Dirk Eric Pitt, a renowned adventurer and accomplished pilot who, together with his sidekick Al Giordino, works on behalf of the - originally fictional - National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). This is an oceanographic research organization headed by Admiral James Sandecker together with his deputy Rudi Gunn .

Pitt is the son of US Senator George Pitt from California. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and holds the rank of major. In the course of the novel series he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and awarded various medals. In the course of his work as a naval engineer for NUMA, Pitt leads numerous ship salvages and puts down various villains. After Sandecker's appointment as Vice President of the United States, Dirk Pitt takes over the management of NUMA. Encouraged by his wife, he is now devoting himself to projects outside the NUMA building and is traveling again.

Pitt and his team are supported by Hiram Yeager, a computer genius who has worked for NUMA from the very beginning, and the marine historian St. Julien Perlmutter, a collector of all ship literature from all centuries. Another supporting character is Congressman Loren Smith, with whom he had a long-term relationship and who eventually marries. In the later novels, the twins Dirk Pitt Jr. and Summer Pitt are introduced to the children of Dirk Pitt, of whose existence he did not know anything up to that point in time.

When Dirk Pitt is not traveling, he spends most of his time in his extravagant and unique house, a converted and renovated hangar on the grounds of Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC A cast-iron staircase leads to an apartment full of nautical charts and model ships . The hangar houses his collection of classic cars, as well as a Messerschmitt Me 262 , a Ford TriMotor , a Pullman car , a totem pole , a cast iron bathtub with an outboard motor, and other souvenirs from his adventures over the years.

The figure Dirk Pitt is a registered trademark of the American writer Clive Cussler.

The novels are written in the style of fast-paced action and follow a simple and predictable storyline. Events and technologies are usually described in great detail.

In the later Dirk Pitt novels, a strange eccentric character appears, who in part identifies himself as “Cussler Clive” or is sometimes implied (“CC” or something like that). Originally only intended for cameo , the Cussler minor character later developed into a deus ex machina .

Villains in the books

Cussler's villains share certain similarities. They are often introverted and power-obsessed people who actually have everything, but are still not happy and therefore want to achieve even greater goals or increase their wealth immeasurably. They live lonely and withdrawn in their fortresses and rule from safe bases and hiding places, yet they play a major role in global coexistence both politically and financially.

Cussler often orients himself to mafia-like structures. In the book Der Todesflieger , the shipowner Bruno von Till directs and plans his fate on a remote Greek island. Its main business is drug smuggling. Another central mafia theme can be found in the novel Inka Gold . There, the villain Joseph Zolar specializes in the exploitation of archaeological artifacts and wants to set up a global archaeological stolen goods cartel. The novel Höllenflut is about human trafficking , prostitution and forced labor . The major Chinese shipping company Qin Shang aims to flood the United States with illegal Chinese immigrants. After all, the book In the Sign of the Vikings focuses on the ruthless Cerberus corporation with the magnate Curtis Merlin Zale.

Political motives also influence Cussler's villains. The characters are often sociopaths who want to impose their ideals or ideological thinking on other people on earth. Oskar Rondheim, a powerful and influential industrial magnate, has set himself the goal of taking over the political leadership of all of Central and South America . The case in the book The Alexandria Conspiracy is similar . It's about a political assassination and a revolutionary in Mexico. The aim is to spark an uprising in Central America so that the people immigrate to the USA as refugees. The brothers Robert and Paul Capesterre want a reorganization. They use the role of fanatical and absolute rulers and arouse anger and blind obedience with their inflammatory speeches in the population.

In the book Deep Sea , an elderly Korean shipowner widow plans the disappearance of the most powerful man in the world. The President of the United States is about to be kidnapped. In Cyclop, in turn, fanatical Soviets are planning a change of power in Cuba , linked to the assassination of Fidel Castro and the destruction of Havana . In secret code Makaze , the Korean industrial mogul Kang tries to carry out a deadly virus attack on the USA in order to enable the reunification of the two Koreans in favor of North Korea. In the novel The Ajima Conspiracy , the villains try to bring the US to its knees and make Japan the leading great power. The Pacific island of Ajima serves as the starting point for the worldwide conspiracy . A tycoon in the book Flammendes Eis , who is a descendant of the tsarist family, tries to regain power in unstable Russia .

Whole families take on the roles of villains. In shockwave , it is the Dorsett family who are very wealthy and involved in the diamond trade. In the Atlantis file , it is the Wolf family who are trying to create a new world order, claiming they are the descendants of Adolf Hitler . In the book Killer Algae , the Fauchard family makes Kurt and Joe life hell.

There are also villains who don't fit into the above categories. In the book Killer Algae , the Fauchard family is obsessively looking for an enzyme that will enable eternal life. The book Tödliche Beute is about an Eskimo tribe and its leader and genetic researcher Toonook, who want to reduce the global fish population by means of gene mutations in salmon .

Adaptations

The rights to the books by Clive Cussler were acquired by Philip Anschutz for Crusader Entertainment , who work closely with the Paramount film company.

Raise the Titanic

In 1980 the bestseller Lifts the Titanic was filmed. The film failed to deliver the tension and action the book promised and flopped at the box office. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, the weak script and the not particularly successful special effects. On the other hand, the casting of the key roles was anything but appropriate. Richard Jordan , who played the main character Dirk Pitt , did not correspond to the image that book readers had made of their hero. Even the involvement of Alec Guinness in a supporting role could not save the film. Cussler said of the film: “ It's bad from start to finish! "

Sahara

In May 2005, the film Sahara - Adventure in the Desert, based on the novel Cusslers of the same name, was released in cinemas. This time Dirk Pitt was played by Matthew McConaughey - known from films such as Contact or U-571 - and Eva Rojas by Penélope Cruz . They were supported by Al Giordino , Dirk Pitt's best friend , played by Steve Zahn . The patriarchal chief of NUMA Admiral James Sandecker was played by William H. Macy . Cussler's daughter Dayna also got a role in the film. Her figure of Kitty Mannock was cut out of the final version.

Clive Cussler worked very actively on this cinema project. His goal was that the film should be reproduced as faithfully as possible this time. After the bad experience with the first film, Cussler had his contract stipulate that he could influence the script and the cast of the film. For this reason, the film had to be reworked several times, partly after legal disputes, and the publication had to be postponed from 2004 to 2005.

Awards

bibliography

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clive Cussler Dead, Bestselling Author Of 'Sahara' Dies At Age 88 February 26, 2020, accessed February 26, 2020 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Cussler, Clive
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cussler, Clive Eric (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Aurora , Illinois , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 2020
Place of death Scottsdale , Arizona , United States