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Louise Thomas
Editor
Author Francine Pascal has died aged 92.
The news was confirmed to the New York Times, by her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal. Pascal died of lymphoma on Sunday (28 July), at New York-Prebyterian Hospital.
She was best known for writing the bestselling young adult book series, which sold over 200 million copies and were later adapted into a television programme that ran for four seasons.
Presiding over a team of ghostwriters to write the collection, the core of the books focused on Sweet Valley High, and followed the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield who live in the fictional town near California.
Pascal began her career writing scripts for soaps before a friend noticed that a teen version of Dallas was missing. She began work on an outline for the series straight away. They became instantly recognisable for their Varsity-style covers.
“There are a lot of twins in my life. [My agent] Amy [Berkower] is a twin. My sister-in-law was a twin. People are always fascinated by twins. You’ll never be alone,” Pascal told Entertainment Weekly in 2019.
“I thought about it, and this other soap opera thing was in my head, the one that I couldn’t sell. I sat down and I wrote a [character] bible and the first 12 stories. It went quickly because it was such a fertile idea. Bantam Books loved it. They ordered all 12.”
The writer was born Francine Paula Rubin to an auctioneer father, in Manhattan, New York in 1932 before being raised in Jamaica, Queens, in the same city.
After studying journalism at New York University, she went on to write for a number of prominent magazines including Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal, and True Confessions.
In 1964, she married her second husband and American playwright John Pascal, keeping his name for the remainder of her life, even after he died of lung cancer in 1981.
Sweet Valley High ran from 1994 to 1997, and starred Brittany and Cynthia Daniel as the lead twins with Scandal star Scott Foley making his acting debut in a supporting role.
The show is available to stream on Prime Video in the US and Disney Plus, depending on location.
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