Juliette Benzoni

Juliette Benzoni (30 October 1920 – 7 February 2016) was a French author and international bestseller in several genres, including historical romance, historical fiction, mystery and screenwriting.

She married a doctor, Maurice Gallois in 1941, and they moved to Dijon where she became the mother of two children.

While studying the history of Burgundy she discovered the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was later to inspire the seven Catherine novels.

In 1950 her husband died of a heart attack, leaving her a widow at the age of 30 with two young children.

She went to Morocco to visit her late husband's parents and found work at a radio station writing advertisements.

In Morocco she met a young French officer, Count André Benzoni di Conza from Corsica, and they married a few weeks before he was assigned to leave for Indochina to rejoin his regiment.

Because of the unstable situation in Morocco, her husband wanted her to return to France, so in 1953 she went to live in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Mandé, where later her husband would become deputy mayor.

Times were hard and she had to look for work, so she began employment as a journalist and author.

Returning to Paris from Morocco in 1953, Benzoni started to work as a journalist, writing historical articles at the Journal du Dimanche and Histoire pour tous.

Under the pseudonym "Juliette Jansen" she interviewed celebrities such as Erich von Stroheim, Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais, Charles Trenet and Maurice Chevalier.

She also began writing narrative adaptations and scenarios for comic strips that ran in some of the daily newspapers in Paris under the aegis of Opera Mundi.

Collaborating with artists Robert Bressy she wrote dialogue for the serial soap Dr. Claudette and Dr. Fu Manchu.

Impressed by her historical knowledge, he asked her if she could write a historical novel in the same style as the Angelique series, (by Anne Golon), which Opéra Mundi had published with great success in 1956.

Benzoni agreed, already having an idea inspired by the legend of the Golden Fleece, and began to write the adventures of a golden-haired beauty during the Hundred Years' War.

In 1959 she participated in the popular television quiz show Le Gros Lot.

The topic was the Italian Renaissance, and the subject was Catherina Sforza.

In spite of floundering on the second-to-last question, the next day she was summoned by Gérald Gauthier, director of the Press Agency at Opéra Mundi.

Catherine was released in 1962 as a cliffhanger in the daily newspaper France-Soir as Il suffit d'un amour (One Love is Enough).

Editions Trévise had in 1962, already published two collections of her short stories- La Reines tragiques and Aventuries du passé, but it was the Catherine novels that launched her career as a bestselling author.

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 Le Provençalwrote: “A heroine – who takes place – alongside Scarlett O'Hara and The Marquise of the Angels” (Angélique).

In August 1964 Benzoni was invited to a cocktail party in London by Heinemann Ltd to introduce Catherine, One Love is Enough. There followed an interview with BBC radio reporter Leigh Crutchley introducing "Countess Juliette Benzoni di Conza" to the English press.

Inspired by the success, Benzoni continued to write.

Seventeen historical series (sixty-five books), a collection of eighteen short story novels, three stand alone novels, all in all eighty-six books, followed.

For her researches Benzoni was often seen at the local library "Monaco" in Saint-Mandé.

She travelled all over the world to visit castles, museums, monasteries, libraries and villages for her work.

Sometimes a museum painting would inspire a new story.

She never kept a computer; each morning at six-thirty she got up and started writing on her old electric typewriter and wrote three pages – never missing a day, even on Sundays.

In 1982 her husband André Benzoni died, making her a widow for the second time.

In January 1985 her son Jean-François Gallois died of a heart-attack, just like his father Maurice.

It was the only time the author suffered from writer's block, while working on the first adventures of Le boiteux de Varsovie.

She lived in a Second Empire mansion with her daughter Anne Gallois, and went for long walks with her dog in the Bois de Vincennes, visiting her favourite library "Monaco" in Saint-Mandé.

Her house was full of books from the cellar up to the first floor – not only literary encyclopaedias, history books, and travel guides but also collections of works by Agatha Christie, Anne Perry and Ken Follett.

She travelled widely, and enjoyed gardening and cooking for her family and guests.

In 1998, at the age of 78, she received the Chevalier de l'Ordre National (National Order of Merit) from President Jacques Chirac.

Known as the "Queen of History Novels" and "Daughter of Alexander Dumas", she wrote 86 books, which were translated into at least 22 languages.

She was born Andrée-Marguerite-Juliette Mangin, the daughter of Marie-Susanne Arnold (of 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 her passion for history through reading a book about Joan of Arc, and her father encouraged her to read the books of Alexander Dumas by giving her a copy of The Three Musketeers.

Benzoni was educated at the Lycée Fénelon, College d'Hulst and the Institut Catholique de Paris, where she studied philosophy, law and literature.