Early life

Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra, California. He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14. He attended Pasadena City College for two years and then enlisted in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. During his service in the Air Force, he was promoted to Sergeant and worked as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS).

Career

After his discharge from the military, Cussler went to work in the advertising industry, first as a copywriter and later as a creative director for two of the nation's most successful advertising agencies. As part of his duties Cussler produced radio and television commercials, many of which won international awards including an award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Following the publication in 1996 of Cussler's first nonfiction work, The Sea Hunters, he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree in 1997 by the Board of Governors of the State University of New York Maritime College who accepted the work in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis. This was the first time in the college's 123-year history that such a degree had been awarded.

In 2002 Cussler was awarded the Naval Heritage Award from the U S Navy Memorial Foundation for his efforts in the area of marine exploration.

Cussler is a fellow of the Explorers Club of New York, the Royal Geographic Society in London, and the American Society of Oceanographers.

Literary career

Clive Cussler began writing in 1965 when his wife took a job working nights for the local police department where they lived in California. After making dinner for the children and putting them to bed, he had no one to talk to and nothing to do, so he decided to start writing. His most famous creation is marine engineer, government agent and adventurer Dirk Pitt. The Dirk Pitt novels frequently take on an alternative history perspective, such as "what if Atlantis were real?" or "what if Abraham Lincoln wasn't assassinated, but was kidnapped?"

The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, were relatively conventional maritime thrillers. The third, Raise the Titanic!, made Cussler's reputation and established the pattern that subsequent Pitt novels would follow: a blend of high adventure and high technology, generally involving megalomaniacal villains, lost ships, beautiful women, and sunken treasure.

Cussler's novels, like those of Michael Crichton, are examples of techno-thrillers that do not use military plots and settings. Where Crichton strove for scrupulous realism, however, Cussler prefers fantastic spectacles and outlandish plot devices. The Pitt novels, in particular, have the anything-goes quality of the James Bond or Indiana Jones movies, while also sometimes borrowing from Alistair MacLean's novels. Pitt himself is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of Doc Savage and other characters from pulp magazines.

Cussler has had more than seventeen consecutive titles reach The New York Times fiction best-seller list.

NUMA

As an underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered more than sixty shipwreck sites and has written non-fiction books about his findings. He is also the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a non-profit organization with the same name as the fictional government agency that employs Dirk Pitt. Cussler owns a large collection of classic cars, several of which (driven by Pitt) appear in his novels.

Important finds by Cussler's N.U.M.A. include

• The Carpathia. The ship famed for being the first to come to the aid of Titanic survivors.
• The Mary Celeste. The famed ghost ship that was found abandoned with cargo intact. (The identification of this wreck as the Mary Celeste has since been placed into a state of question after one researcher disputed the claim's authenticity.)

• The Manassas. The first ironclad of the civil war, formerly the icebreaker Enoch Train.

A visual and interactive depiction of Cussler's NUMA Foundation Expeditions has been made available as an extension of NUMA's original website.

Media appearances

In what started as a joke in the novel Dragon that Cussler expected his editor to remove, he now often writes himself into his books. At first he wrote himself simple cameos, but later as something of a deus ex machina, providing the novel's protagonists with an essential bit of assistance or information. Often, the character is given an alias and not revealed as Cussler until his exit with the characters remarking on his odd name. The cameos include the Pitt adventures, as well as the Fargo Files books Lost Empire, Spartan Gold, Kingdom, and The Tombs had Cussler making an appearance. The Tombs also includes his wife, Janet.

There are at least two other types of recurring in-jokes that are less obvious to a casual reader. One is the frequent reuse of the name Leigh Hunt for different characters in different novels. Seventeen books have had a character with this name, frequently in the opening prologues, frequently a sailor, usually dying; a notable exception is the first (in chronological order) Dirk Pitt adventure, Pacific Vortex, in which Admiral Leigh Hunt is a major character, commander of the 101st Recovery Fleet in Hawaii. In the introduction to Arctic Drift, Cussler says there was a real Leigh Hunt who died in 2007 and the novel is dedicated to him. Another is that significant events in several novels occur on July 15 (Cussler's birthday). He also uses the name "Periwinkle" in his works. In The Adventures of Vin Fiz (and in other works as well) there appears a donkey named Periwinkle. In Valhalla Rising, Periwinkle is the name of a catamaran in which Pitt, Giordino, and Misty Graham are rescued by none other than Mr. Cussler himself. Cussler's friend Craig Dirgo is mentioned in several books.

Adaptations

• The first film of a Clive Cussler novel was Raise the Titanic! (1980), starring Richard Jordan as Dirk Pitt, Jason Robards as Admiral James Sandecker, David Selby as Dr. Gene Seagram, Anne Archer as Dana Seagram. It grossed $13.8 million on a budget of $36 million.
• Paramount Pictures released Sahara on April 8, 2005, starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, Steve Zahn as Al Giordino, William H. Macy as Admiral Sandecker, and Penélope Cruz as Eva Rojas. It grossed $122 million with $241 million in production and distribution expenses.

Personal life

Clive Cussler married Barbara Knight in 1955, and they remained married for nearly fifty years until her death in 2003. Together they had three children — Teri, Dirk, and Dayna — who have given him four grandchildren.

Bibliography

Dirk Pitt Adventures

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Pacific Vortex!1	1983
2	The Mediterranean Caper2	1973
3	Iceberg	1975
4	Raise the Titanic!	1976
5	Vixen 03	1978
6	Night Probe!	1981
7	Deep Six	1984
8	Cyclops	1986
9	Treasure	1988
10	Dragon	1990
11	Sahara	1992
12	Inca Gold	1994
13	Shock Wave	1996
14	Flood Tide	1997
15	Atlantis Found	1999
16	Valhalla Rising3	2001
17	Trojan Odyssey3	2003
18	Black Wind3, 4	2004
19	Treasure of Khan3, 4	2006
20	Arctic Drift3, 4	2008
21	Crescent Dawn3, 4	2010
22	Poseidon's Arrow3, 4	2012
23	Havana Storm3, 4	2014
24	Odessa Sea	2016

The NUMA Files

This series of books focuses on Kurt Austin, Team Leader of NUMA's Special Assignments division and his adventures. Some characters from the Pitt novels appear such as Sandecker, Rudi Gunn, Hiram Yaeger and St. Julien Perlmutter. Pitt makes brief appearances in the books Serpent, White Death, Polar Shift, Devil's Gate, The Storm, Zero Hour, and Ghost Ship and is mentioned in Lost City.

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Serpent *	1999
2	Blue Gold *	2000
3	Fire Ice *	2002
4	White Death *	2003
5	Lost City *	2004
6	Polar Shift *	2005
7	The Navigator *	2007
8	Medusa *	2009
9	Devil's Gate †	2011
10	The Storm †	2012
11	Zero Hour †	2013
12	Ghost Ship †	2014
13	The Pharaoh's Secret †	2015

The Oregon Files

The Oregon Files features a ship named the Oregon which Cussler introduced in the Dirk Pitt Adventure Flood Tide (1997). While appearing to be a decrepit freighter, it's actually a high-tech advanced ship used by an unnamed and mysterious "Corporation" under the leadership of Juan Cabrillo. The ship is run like a business, with its crew being shareholders, taking jobs for the CIA and other agencies to help stop crime and terrorism. The crew is adept at disguises, combat, computer hacking, and more, to aid their missions. Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and Dirk Pitt all make cameo appearances in the fourth volume, Skeleton Coast (Cabrillo speaks to Pitt on the telephone; and Austin and Zavala appear at the end).

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Golden Buddha ‡	2003
2	Sacred Stone ‡	2004
3	Dark Watch §	2005
4	Skeleton Coast §	2006
5	Plague Ship §	2008
6	Corsair §	2009
7	The Silent Sea §	2010
8	The Jungle §	2011
9	Mirage §	2013
10	Piranha ≠	2015
11	The Emperor's Revenge ≠	June 23, 2016

Isaac Bell Adventures

These books are set mostly in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. They center around Isaac Bell, a brilliant investigator for the Van Dorn Detective agency, which appears to be modeled after the real-life Pinkerton Agency. Like Pitt, Bell has an affinity for automobiles and is a crack shot. The first book reveals that Bell survives into 1950 with a wife and grown children. Though the setting is a century ago, the books still qualify as techno-thrillers, since they feature the advanced technology of that time such as private express trains, telegraphs, telephones, dreadnought battleships and early airplanes.

#	Title	Publication Date
1	The Chase	2007
2	The Wrecker ‖	2009
3	The Spy ‖	2010
4	The Race ‖	2011
5	The Thief ‖	2012
6	The Striker ‖	2013
7	The Bootlegger ‖	2014
8	The Assassin ‖	2015
9	The Gangster ‖	March 1, 2016

Fargo Adventures

The series focuses on Sam and Remi Fargo, a couple who are professional treasure hunters.

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Spartan Gold ^	2009
2	Lost Empire ^	2010
3	The Kingdom ^	2011
4	The Tombs ⚡	2012
5	The Mayan Secrets ⚡	2013
6	The Eye of Heaven ×	2014
7	The Solomon Curse ×	2015
8	Pirate	2016

Non-fiction

Title	Publication Date
The Sea Hunters: True Adventures With Famous Shipwrecks ‡	1996
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed ‡	1998
The Sea Hunters II: Diving the World's Seas for Famous Shipwrecks ‡	2002
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt	2011

Children's books

Title	Publication Date
The Adventures of Vin Fiz	2006
The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy	2010

Recurring characters

NUMA

Name	Information
Dirk Pitt	Main character of the Dirk Pitt adventure series, and Special Projects Director of NUMA
Al Giordino	Dirk Pitt's sidekick
Admiral James Sandecker	Retired Admiral, Original Director of NUMA, now the Vice President
Rudi Gunn	2nd in command NUMA
Dirk Pitt, Jr.	Son of Dirk Pitt
Summer Pitt	Daughter of Dirk Pitt
Jack Dahlgren	Dirk Pitt Jr's sidekick
Kurt Austin	Main Character of The NUMA Series, and Special Assignments Team Leader
Joe Zavala	Kurt Austin's Sidekick, and Member of the Special Assignments Team
Paul Trout	Member of the Special Assignments Team
Gamay Trout	Member of the Special Assignments Team

Fargo Adventures

Name	Information
Sam Fargo	Main character of the Fargo adventure series
Remi Fargo	Main character of the Fargo adventure series
Selma Wondrash	The Fargo's chief researcher
Wendy Corden	Assistant researcher under Selma
Pete Jeffcoat	Assistant researcher under Selma
Rube Hayward	The Fargo's CIA contact

The Oregon Files

Name	Information
Juan Cabrillo	Chairman of the Corporation
Max Hanley	President of the Corporation
Richard Truitt	Vice President of Operations for the Corporation
George Adams	Helicopter Pilot / Operative
Rick Barrett	Assistant Chef / Operative
Monica Crabtree	Supply and Logistics Coordinator / Operative
Carl Gannon	General Operations / Operative
Chuck 'Tiny' Gunderson	Chief Pilot / Operative
Michael Halpert	Finance and Accounting / Operative
Cliff Hornsby	General Operations / Operative
Julia Huxley	Medical Officer / Operative
Pete Jones	General Operations / Operative
Hali Kasim	Communications Expert / Operatives
Larry King	Sniper / Operative
Franklin Lincoln	General Operations / Operative
Bob Meadows	General Operations / Operative
Mark Murphy	Weapons Specialist / Operative
Kevin Nixon	Magic Shop Specialist / Operative
Sam Pryor	Propulsion Engineer / Operative
Gunther Reinholt	Propulsion Engineer / Operative
Tom Reyes	General Operations / Operative
Linda Ross	Security and Surveillance / Operative
Eddie Seng	Director of Shore Operations / Operative
Eric Stone	Control Room Operations / Operative
Langston Overholt IV	The Corporation's CIA contact

Isaac Bell Adventures

Name	Information
Isaac Bell	Main character of the Isaac Bell adventure series
Marion Morgan	Isaac Bell's fiancé, and later, wife
Joseph Van Dorn	Owner of the Van Dorn Detective Agency

Other co-authors

Cussler has co-authored books with other writers, such as Russell Blake.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]