Juliette Benzoni

Juliette Benzoni

Juliette Benzoni 1963
Born Andrée-Marguerite–Juliette Mangin
(1920-10-30)30 October 1920
Paris, France
Died 7 February 2016(2016-02-07) (aged 95)
Saint-Mandé,Saint-Mandé France
Resting place Cimetière Saint-Mandé Sud, Saint-Mandé,Val-de-Marne, France
Occupation Journalist
author
scriptwriter
Nationality French
Genre Historical Romance, historical fiction
Notable awards Alexandre Dumas Prix (1973 for Literature)
Prix Louis Barthou Académie française (1988)
Knight of National Order of Merit France (1998)
Years active 1962–2016
Signature
Website
juliette-benzoni-officiel.com

Juliette Benzoni was born on 30 October 1920 in Paris and died on 7 February 2016 at Saint-Mandé, in her 96th year of her life. She was an international French Bestseller author of historical Novels, Romance Novels and screenplay writer and was quoted in the Media as the Queen of History Novels and the Daughter of Alexander Dumas. She wrote 86 books, which were translated in at least 36 countries. More than three million books were sold in France and in foreign countries. Fifty million readers all over the world.

Personal life

Juliette Benzoni's maiden was Andrée-Marguerite–Juliette Mangin. She was the daughter of Marie-Susanne Arnold (with Alsace and Swiss origin) and Charles-Hubert Mangin. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Paris. At the age of nine she discovered in a book Joan of Arc at the stake and that was the moment her passion for history was awakened. It was her father who persuaded her to read the books of Alexander Dumas as she told 2002 the Magazine Littéraire[1] for the two hundred anniversary of that famous author.

⚜ It was my father who, one fine day, put the Three Musketeers into my hands, saying that it should please me. Being himself a bit of Alexander Dumas and regretting a little that I was not a boy... ⚜

From that day on she always had a copy of one of Dumas Novels near by. Juliette Benzoni was educated at the College d'Hulst and the Institut Catholique, where she studied philosophy, law and literature. She married at a young age a doctor from Dijon and went to live there where she became a mother of two children. During that time she studied Burgundian History and stumbled on the Order of the Golden Fleece which inspired her later for the Catherine Series[2] Her husband Maurice Gallois died of a heart attack in 1950, leaving her a widow at the age of 30 with two children. She went to Morocco to visit some relatives of her late husband and found work at a Radio Station. It was there she met her future husband a young French officer, Count André Benzoni di Conza born in Corsica. When he went to Indochina, she returned back to France. She lived in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Mandé, of which her husband would become deputy mayor. She travelled widely, and enjoyed gardening and cooking.[3] In 1982 fate blew her another stroke, her husband André Benzoni died – which made her the second time a widow. And again years later when her son Jean-François suffered the same fate as his father Maurice Gallois, dying on a heart-attack. It was the only time the author suffered a writer's blockade during writing the first adventures of Le boiteux de Varsovie. She lived in a beautiful Second Empire house together with her daughter Anne Gallois. One could see her going for walks with her dog in the Bois de Vincennes or always on the go to her favourite library. Her house was full of books from the cellar up to the first floor – you could see not only Literary encylopaedia, History books, Travelling guides but also a collection of Agatha Christie's or Anne Perry. A beautiful garden with many roses, a wisteria bush, trees – where in a niche was set a table where the author by lovely weather sat and made notes for her the book she was working at.

Career

Returning back to Paris from Morocco in the beginning of the Fifties, Juliette Benzoni started to work as a journalist and writing historical articles at Journal du Dimanche and Histoire pour tous. Under the name of Juliette Jansen she interviewed such international celebrities like Erich von Stroheim, Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais( The Beauty And the Beast directed by Jean Cocteau) and Charles Trenet (Composer of the Song La Mer). In 1959 she participated at the popular television Quiz Show Le Gros Lot (in Association with the National Lottery in France). Her subject was the Italian Renaissance Catherina Sforza. She floundered on the second last question – but the next day she was summoned to the head office to see Gérald Gauthier, director of the Press Agency at Opera Mundi. He had been so impressed by her historical knowledge that he asked her if she could write a historical novel in the same style as the international Bestseller Series Angélique by Anne Golon which Opera Mundi had published in 1956. Juliette Benzoni agreed and said she had an idea – the legend of the Golden Fleece. She started to write 1'100 pages about a golden-haired girl at the time of the Hundred Years War.

Catherine was released in 1962 as a daily cliffhanger in the Newspaper France-Soir under the title Il suffit d'un amour. The book was not yet published when ten foreign publishing houses bought the rights for Catherine. In 1963 newspaper Le Figaro wrote: Before the book was even published it beats all records: it is already sold to ten different countries. France-Soir confirmed: it has an unprecedented destiny in the history of publishing... On 10 June 1964 the French Newspaper Le Provençal wrote: A heroine – who takes place – alongside of Scarlett O'Hara and of The Marquise of the Angels (Angélique). The Catherine series, was immediately a huge world-wide success. Yet One Love is Enough as the first book would be named in English, had not been her first book. Editions Trévise had already 1962 published two books (collection of short stories) of Juliette Benzoni La Reines tragiques and Aventuries du passé. But it was the Catherine Novels which really launched her career as a Bestseller author.

In August 1964 Juliette Benzoni was invited to a Cocktail Party in London by Heinemann Ltd to introduce to the Press the translated copy of Catherine One Love is Enough. There followed an interview with BBC radio reporter Leigh Crutchley – introducing the Countess Juliette Benzoni di Conza to the English Press. What followed seemed like a dream. To this day there can be found at least thirty countries where the story of Catherine Legoix, daughter of a Parisian goldsmith and Arnaud de Montsalvy, Captain in the army of Charles VII was published.

The enormous success had inspired the author to continue writing. There followed seventeen historical series (sixty-five books), a collection of eighteen short story Novels, three unique Novels – all in all eighty-six books. She travelled all over the world for her researches. She never kept a computer but went to the local library at Saint-Mandé to find missing information she needed for her books. Each morning at six-thirty she got up and started typing on her old electric typewriter and wrote three pages – never missing a day, even on Sundays. From time to time she appeared on television[4] invited to introduce one of her new books or was asked to give an interview at a radio station. In 1965 even a song was composed by Paul Amar and Juliette Benzoni, with the title Catherine, il suffit d'un amour, sung by Michèle Arnaud and also Bernard Stéphane. She met many important historians, authors, professors, directors and stars. The great French historian Alain Decaux was an open admirer of Juliette – as she was of him. In her book Par le Fer ou le Poison, published in 1973 by Plon, he writes in his preface:

⚜ You are a great admirer of Alexander Dumas. You see in him your Master. You follow the same road as he does: You help the French love History ⚜

One of the secrets of Juliette Benzoni's success as a Romancière consisted of the fact that the plots in her Novels were leak-proof. Why else would the 40th American President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy have sent her a letter, after they had read her first Novel of the "Le Gerfaut series" – English title "The Lure of the Falcon" for the way she had described the American Independence War? Unfortunatelly the letter perished in a fire in the house of Juliette, together with the Manuscript of Catherine.

From the beginning of her writing career the author had a faithful readership who looked forward to each new publication. Her Novels were published by acclaimed Publishing houses in France and many foreign countries. In some of the Castle's in France, one might find her Series of Le Roman des Châteaux de France, with a foreword by noted Stéphane Bern, journalist and moderator[5]. Juliette Benzoni narrates for the reader the life of famous historic characters who lived in these castle's in her inimitable way. Unfortunately the English readers were not so fortunate to read Juliette Benzoni's other historical Novels. A genuine loss for the readers who had enjoyed the Catherine Series, Marianne Series and The Lure of the Falcon.

The Aldo Morosini Adventures

In the Nineties the Romancière had created a new hero, the Venetian Prince, his Highness Aldo Morosini[6] expert on historic  precious stones. The origination of the Aldo Morosini Novels is quite unique, as we learn from the author herself in her foreword. She was working on a script for television (a famous French actor had asked her to write an adventure series where he would have the leading role ). This time the story would not play in bygone centuries, but begin in 1918, quite a novelty for Juliette Benzoni. However the producer of the future televison series Claude Barma died shortly afterwards and the project broke down. Some years later, she remembered that she had still the script and offered it to her publisher. What first started to be a series of 4 Novels, each titled after a world famous precious stone, became another of the authors unquestionably great success, besides the Catherine series. The Novels were devoured not just by the female readers but also the male. Prince Aldo Morosini a kind of Simon Templar, (enthralling detail, the hero is half French, half Venetian), when he returns home from World War 1 to Venice, to his fathers Palace at the Grand Canal, he finds his Mother murdered and the family heirloom The Blue Star stolen. He decides not to inform the Police, but to search the thief-murderer himself. Instead of marrying a rich wife as is suggested to him by the family lawyer, he becomes an antiquarian, specialist on precious and ancient stones. The pursuit after the stones and murderer brings him to many foreign countries, like Paris, Zurich, Vienna, London, Warsaw, Seville, Prague, Jerusalem, Cairo and even as far as the United States. The adventures of the dashing Aldo Morosini kept Juliette Benzoni's readers not just in France spellbound. Due to its success the author started in between other Novels to write regularily a new adventure of her favourite hero, of whom she once said in an Interview with Juliette Benzoni in 2010[7]: I would love to have Aldo Morosini as a nephew! Even though these exellent and suspensful Novels – which also are laden with romantic adventures by the handsome hero, were such an outstanding success, no English publisher ever approached Juliette Benzoni's publisher PLON for buying the rights of the Adventures of Aldo Morosini. The fans of his Highness Aldo Morosini called for more stories each time a new book came out. Two weeks before Juliette Benzoni's death in 2016, her last Novel Le Vol du Sancy was published. Acclaimed French historian and writer Vincent Meylan wrote in his obituary for Juliette Benzoni "Aldo Morosini, the Venetian Prince is in mourning..."


Catherine Novels

The Catherine series were a fantastic success all over the World. After Great Brittain the American market also published with enormous success Juliette Benzoni's series back in 1967 – yet with different book covers and different titles. Their headline said: Juliette Benzoni's Belle Catherine – A ravishing heroine in the full-blooded tradition of Désirée and Angélique. Yet just like the English publisher Heinemann Ltd Avon Books also never translated the seventh book La Dame de Montsalvy. The readers were left with a Cliffhanger, not knowing the destiny of Catherine. The list would be long to add all the countries who for some unknown reasons never translated not just the seventh book, but also the sixth: A Snare for Catherine. To be fair it has to be said that Catherine and a Time for love had ended in 1968 with an epiloque. The next two books were written years later, 1973 and 1979.

In 2014 The English Publishing house Telos Publishing bought the rights from Juliette Benzoni to re-issue the Catherine Series- which included the never before translated seventh book La Dame de Montsalvy, which will be titled The Lady of Montsalvy. In March 2015 more than forty years later, the first two Catherine Novels were again on the market. Telos Publishing announced on their official website that this time the Catherine Novels would be unabbreviated!

Press

Many articles were believed lost from the authors earlier years as a writer – but in time of Internet – and the friendship Juliette Benzoni shared with two of her greatest fans Les filles des Grands Chemins as she called them fondly, it is possible to see for the first time the work history of the author on their websites. She had kept in a box at her home all of her most important souvenirs which she placed into the hands of her trustworthy fans.

Publications

The Series

Short Stories

Single Novels

Filmography

In 1968 the producer of the Angélique films was given the job to turn Catherine, One love is Enough into a film. Alas, it was one of the greatest disappointments in Juliette Benzoni's life. In many interviews she states that when she saw the end product, she cried like a fountain. The producer Bernard Broderie had completely changed her story – and as a result the film flopped at the cinema. For the author the adventure Cinema was a topic never to be mentioned again. Yet when French television approached her for the adaption of her second Bestseller Marianne, a Star for Napoleon with acclaimed director Marion Sarraut to be in charge, she agreed. Marion Sarraut and Juliette Benzoni were called a dream-team and this time all went well. Juliette Benzoni wrote together with Jean Chatenet the screenplay and the television series became a huge success on the small screen. Confidently she agreed in 1985 to the filming of Catherine, il suffit d'un amour. It was to be the longest series so far on French television. Not even the badly placed time of 1:30 pm could stop the stupendous success of Catherine. In 1987 there followed Le Gerfaut (The Lure of the Falcon) introducing the very first time a male hero in the leading role. The last book series to be filmed was La Florentine, one of the book series which was alas never translated into English.

Catherine was first adapted in 1969 for Cinema, a French, German, Italian Production by Bernard Broderie. Four years later Antenne 2 – SFP Production bought the rights for the filming of four of Juliette Benzoni's international book series Bestsellers, Marianne, a Star for Napoleon, Catherine, One Love is Enough, Le Gerfaut and La Florentine.

Awards and honours

Juliette Benzoni received in 1973 the Alexandre Dumas Prix for her complete work at that time, the Catherine and the Marianne series. The prize was precious to her, she had been a fervent admiress of Alexander Dumas since her childhood. She mentioned in the Magazine Littéraire that the medal was always on her working table. In 1988 Académie française, (founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu) had chosen her for the Literature prize Prix Louis Barthou[8] ,in the form of a silver medal for Félicia au soleil couchant. In 1998 at the age of 78 she received the Knight of National Order of Merit – Chevalier de l'Ordre National[9] , awarded by the President of the French Republic.

Death

Resting place of Juliette Benzoni

Juliette Benzoni died peacefully in her sleep on 7 February,[10] 2016 in Saint-Mandé, two weeks after her last book Le Vol du Sancy: Des Carrats pour Ava was published, her daughter Anne at her side. She is buried at the Cemetery in Saint-Mandè, where also her Mother, her late husband and her beloved son lie.

References

  1. ↑ Magazine Littéraire, Alexandre Dumas 200 ans après 2002,
  2. ↑ "Catherine Book Series" Catherine de Montsalvy website
  3. ↑ "Juliette Benzoni par Juliette Benzoni" printed in Catherine; 2 Belle Catherine" ISBN 978-2-266-25793-0
  4. ↑ French television, "Lisons ensemble" with Juliette Benzoni, 1978
  5. ↑ Foreword by Stéphane Bern, Specialist in Royal families
  6. ↑ Genesis of how the "Blue Star" was born, the Novels of Aldo Morosini
  7. ↑ Interview with Juliette Benzoni in 2010 Prince Aldo Morosini
  8. ↑ "Louis Barthou Prix" for the Novel Félicia au soleil couchant
  9. ↑ "Juliette Benzoni,Knight of National Order of Merit"
  10. ↑ "Death of Juliette Benzoni in Le Figaro" Article by Astrid Eliard

Sources



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