Producer Robert Bradford Dies at 94

By Anna Tingley

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Film and television producer Robert Bradford, novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford’s husband who shepherded adaptations of many of her books, died early Tuesday morning in New York’s Presbyterian Hospital following a stroke. He was 94.

Badford played a large role in his wife’s work, producing nine of her books as miniseries and movies-of-the-week for NBC and CBS, including “A Woman of Substance” starring Liam Neeson and Jenny Seagrove, and “Voice of the Heart” starring James Brolin and Lindsey Wagner. In addition to his love for film, he also had a significant appreciation for books and was the first person to buy a full-page ad on the back page of the the New York Times Arts section to promote his wife’s book, which he continued to do for many of her novels over the years. The couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary last December.

Badford was born in Germany but left war-torn Europe at the end of World War II, moving to New York and then Hollywood to pursue a film career. It was in Los Angeles where her formed closed friendships with renowned lawyer Louis Blau of Loeb and Loeb, and Jessie L. Lasky, the founder of Paramount Pictures.

Years later, as the VP for Samuel Bronston Productions in Madrid, he produced films such as “El Cid,” “Fifty-Five Days in Peking” and “John Paul Jones.” He went on to serve as the CEO of Franco London Films in Paris where he supervised on productions including John Frankenheimer’s “Impossible Object” starring Alan Bates and Dominique Sanda and “Mourir D’Aimer” (“To Die of Love”) starring Annie Girardot.

In the 1980s, Badford created his own production company out of which the many film and TV adaptations of his wife’s novels were produced.