Read the complete write-up of Jack Higgins net worth, cause of death, age, wife, children, height, family, parents, education as well as other information you need to know.
Introduction
Jack Higgins was a British author. He was a best-selling author of popular thrillers and espionage novels. His novel The Eagle Has Landed (1975) sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a successful 1976 movie of the same title. Higgins notable books are A Prayer for the Dying (1973), The Eagle Has Flown (1991), Thunder Point (1993), Angel of Death (1995), Flight of Eagles (1998), and Day of Reckoning (2000). His 85 novels in total have sold more than 250 million copies and have been translated into 55 languages.
Early life
| Name | Henry Patterson (Jack Higgins) |
| Net Worth | $86 million |
| Occupation | Author |
| Height | 175m |
| Age | 92 years (BD) |
| First wife | Amy Hewitt |
| Second wife | Denise Palmer |
| Cause of death | Not reported |
Jack Higgins whose real name is Henry ”Harry” Patterson was born on July 27, 1929, until his death on 9 April 2022 at age 92 years. He was born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. He was the son of an English father and a Northern Irish mother. When his father abandoned them soon afterward, his mother returned with him to her hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to live with her mother and her grandfather on the Shankill Road.
Higgins was raised amid the religious and political violence of Belfast, Patterson learned to read at the age of three when he was tasked with reading The Christian Herald to his bed-ridden grandfather. At night, he would crouch beneath a window and read by the light of street lamps.
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I read Oliver Twist when I was six. Not because it was a classic, but because it was a book that was available. I probably didn’t understand everything in it—for years I used to pronounce the word rogue as rogger—but I didn’t care. I just loved reading.
When his mother remarried, the family relocated to Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, where Patterson won a scholarship to attend Roundhay Grammar School for Boys. He proved to be an indifferent student and left school with few formal qualifications. In 1947 he began two years of national service, at first with the East Yorkshire Regiment, and later as a non-commissioned officer of the Royal Horse Guards Regiment of the Household Cavalry doing security work on the East German border.
After leaving the army, he returned to education at Beckett Park teacher training college in Leeds and studied for a BSc sociology degree as a London School of Economics external student, taking his finals in Bradford in 1961. By day, he was working as a driver and labourer at night. He chose the university for its “history of nonconformism”.
He received his third-class degree after three years of study. After getting a teaching qualification, he started teaching at Allerton Grange Comprehensive School. He accepted a job lecturing in social psychology and criminology He taught liberal studies at Leeds Polytechnic and education at James Graham College, which became part of Leeds Polytechnic in 1976.
Career
Jack Higgins began writing novels in 1959. One of his aliases was James Graham. The growing success of his early work allowed him to take time off from his teaching, which he quit eventually to become a full-time novelist. His early novels, using his own name (as “Harry Patterson”) as well as the pseudonyms James Graham, Martin Fallon, and Hugh Marlowe, are thrillers that typically feature hardened, cynical heroes, ruthless villains, and dangerous locales.
Patterson published thirty-five such novels (sometimes three or four a year) between 1959 and 1974, learning his craft. East Of Desolation (1968), A Game For Heroes (1970) and The Savage Day (1972) are notable among his early work for their vividly described settings (Greenland, the Channel Islands, and Belfast, respectively) and offbeat plots.
He began using the pseudonym Jack Higgins during the late 1960s; his first minor bestsellers were published during the early 1970s, two contemporary thrillers The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying, but it was the publication of his thirty-sixth book, The Eagle Has Landed, in 1975, that made Higgins’ reputation. Its plot concerns a German commando unit sent into England to kidnap Winston Churchill. The main character is arguably an Irish gunman and poet, Liam Devlin.
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Higgins followed The Eagle Has Landed with a series of thrillers, including several (Touch The Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown) featuring the character Devlin. The third phase of Patterson’s career began with the publication of Eye of the Storm in 1992, a fictionalized retelling of an unsuccessful mortar attack on Prime Minister John Major, by a ruthless young Irish gunman-philosopher named Sean Dillon, hired by an Iraqi millionaire.
Cast as the main character for the next series of novels (22 out of 43 published between 1992 and 2017), it is apparent that Dillon is in many ways an amalgamation of Patterson’s previous heroes—Chavasse with his flair for languages, Nick Miller’s familiarity with martial arts and jazz keyboard skills, Simon Vaughan’s Irish roots, facility with firearms and the cynicism that comes with assuming the responsibility of administering a justice unavailable through a civilized legal system.
Wife
Jack Higgins’s current wife was Denise Palmer, they had their wedding in 1985. However, he met his first wife Amy Hewitt while both were studying at the London School of Economics. They were married in 1958, soon after he received a £75 advance for his first novel—”the biggest wedding present we could have had.” Jack Higgins had four children: Sarah Patterson (born 1960), Ruth Patterson (born 1962), Sean Patterson (born 1965), and Hannah Patterson (born 1974). Their daughter Sarah Patterson authored the novel The Distant Summer (1976). Patterson and his first wife’s marriage ended in 1984.
Cause of death
Jack Higgins died at his home in Jersey, the United Kingdom on 9 April 2022, at the age of 92. There were no reports on the cause of death.
Jack Higgins net worth
How much was Jack Higgins worth? Jack Higgins net worth was estimated at around $86 million. His main source of income was from his career as an author. Higgins successful career earned him some luxurious lifestyles and some fancy cars trips. He was one of the richest and influential authors in the United Kingdom.