Semi-OT: RIP author of juv. novel, "Chocolate Fever," 1972

[leno...@yahoo.com]

The author was Robert Kimmel Smith.

Note who's starring in an upcoming movie that's based on another book of his!

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/83184-obituary-robert-kimmel-smith.html

Second half of obituary:

...Smith worked as a traveling salesman among other things during the mid 1950s before landing a position as a copywriter at advertising firm Doyle, Dane, Bernbach in 1957. “That’s where my education in writing really began,” he said in his SATA interview, noting that he benefited from the discipline of sticking to a deadline. Smith rose through the ranks in advertising, becoming a copy chief at Grey Advertising and then in 1967 forming his own firm, Smith & Toback, with partner Harvard Toback.

Throughout his ad agency years, Smith sold several pieces of short fiction to magazines under the pseudonym Peter Marks, all the while holding on to his dream or writing a novel. He has credited his wife Claire, who became a literary agent at Harold OberAssociates, with being his best editor and great supporter. On January 1, 1970, Smith embarked on a new career path and became a full-time writer. The first manuscript he completed was inspired by a humorous story he had been telling his then-seven-year-old daughter Heidi about a boy who loved chocolate more than anything else. The result was Chocolate Fever, which was published by Coward McCann and Geoghegan in 1972. The book has remained in print over the years and has sold more than two million copies.

With that first book under his belt, Smith was writing at full steam, publishing a trio of novels for adults with Simon & Schuster starring Sadie Shapiro, a wisecracking septuagenarian known for her knitting, as well as the more serious Jane’s House (Morrow, 1982) about a husband and family grieving the untimely death of their wife and mother. It was produced for television in 1994 in a movie starring James Woods and Anne Archer. Smith also wrote several plays and television scripts during this fruitful period.

By the early 1980s, Smith again focused on writing for children. The War with Grandpa (Delacorte, 1984) tells the tale of Peter, a boy who is not happy about relinquishing his bedroom when his widowed grandfather comes to live with the family, so he declares war. The novel won 11 IRA-CBC Children’s Choice state reading awards and has been adapted as a feature film starring Robert De Niro as Grandpa, slated for release later this year. Delacorte plans to simultaneously publish a movie tie-in edition.

Claire Smith died of lung cancer in 1998. In 2000, Robert Smith married Margery Nathanson, former director of design services for the New York City Department of Transportation, gallerist and collector of Latin American folk art. Their family recalled in an obituary note that Smith serenaded Nathanson at their wedding ceremony and continued to do so during the two decades they shared together living in Manhattan.


Six Kirkus reviews:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/search/books/?q=robert%20kimmel%20smith&sf=t


About "Chocolate Fever":

"From eating too much chocolate, Henry breaks out in brown bumps that
help him foil some hijackers and teach him a valuable lesson about
self-indulgence."

http://www.robertkimmelsmith.com/

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/robert-kimmel-smith/
(Book covers)

http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-106029
(synopses)

From a Random House article:

Ideas come to Smith from life experiences, from things that happened
to him personally or from things that happened to people he knew.
Jelly Belly was drawn from his own childhood, when he was the fattest
child in fifth grade. The War with Grandpa was inspired by events that
involved his son, Roger, who one day told him that he loved his room
and “never wanted to live anywhere else.” That gave him the idea to
write a story about a boy who has to give up his room for his
grandfather.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbs=vid%3A1&q=%22robert+kimmel%22+smith&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=6c169abe58a6d9cd
(three or four videos)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0809759/
(about the TV versions of "Chocolate Fever" and "Jane's House")

Reader reviews:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/92212.Robert_Kimmel_Smith


Lenona.