Francine Pascal, Creator of ‘Sweet Valley High’ Book Series, Dies at 92
Francine Pascal, best known for creating the hit young adult book series Sweet Valley High, died Sunday. She was 92.
Her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal confirmed to The New York Times that the author died of lymphoma at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Pascal’s agent also confirmed her death to the BBC.
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A lifelong New Yorker, Pascal was born in Manhattan on May 13, 1932, and raised in Jamaica, Queens. She began her career as a journalist, contributing to such magazines as Cosmopolitan and Ladies’ Home Journal. She later joined the writers room, alongside her second husband John Pascal, for the soap opera The Young Marrieds in the mid-’60s. The couple left the series after being asked to relocate to Los Angeles. The duo joined forces again to write the 1968 musical George M!, based on the life of one of the earliest Broadway stars, George M. Cohan.
Besides her collaborative work with her spouse, Pascal began carving out her own career as a prolific writer in 1977 with her first novel, Hangin’ Out With Cici, about a teen girl who travels back in time to meet her mother when she was her age. It was adapted for a 1981 ABC afterschool special, titled “My Mother Was Never a Kid.” The book also marked the debut of her Victoria Martin trilogy, which includes My First Love and Other Disasters and Love & Betrayal & Hold the Mayo.
Her best-selling book series, Sweet Valley High, was born in 1983 after Pascal found herself struggling to write a soap opera treatment. A friend mentioned that someone else in the industry pointed out there were no teenage versions of hit soaps like Dallas.
This inspired Pascal to begin writing about twin high schoolers: Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who lived in the titular fictional California suburb, Sweet Valley. Pascal found a book deal at Random House and launched what became a 181-novel series. It was adapted for TV in 1994 by Saban Entertainment, with the series airing until October 1997. Sweet Valley High also had various spin-offs, including Sweet Valley Confidential, which followed the adult lives of the characters.
Besides Sweet Valley High novels, Pascal also wrote a fantasy series called Fearless, about a teenage girl named Gaia Moore, who is incapable of feeling fear. In addition to her YA books, Pascal penned two novels for adults: 1981’s Save Johanna! and 1994’s If Wishes Were Horses, which was partially inspired by her life with John, who died in 1981.
Pascal is survived by her daughters Wenk-Pascal and Susan Johansson, along with six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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