Olivia Goldsmith

Olivia Goldsmith was an American best-selling author of pop-feminist novels. She is best known for her first novel, The First Wives Club (1992), which was adapted into the same title movie in 1996.

Olivia Goldsmith was born Randy Goldfield in Dumont, New Jersey, but changed her name to Justine Goldfield and later to Justine Rendal. A graduate of New York University, she was a partner at the management consultants Booz & Company in New York, where she worked from 1976 to 1981 and was one of the first women to make a partner.

Around 1983, she started her firm, the Omni Group, which helped companies such as Hoffman-La Roche, Merrill Lynch, IBM, and Data General automate their offices.

She began writing after her divorce, in which she said her husband got almost everything (including her Jaguar and country house).

Many of her books could be called humorous fiction or revenge fantasies; a recurring theme is the mistreatment of women by the men they love, but the women come out victorious in the end.

Her debut novel, First Wives Club, was the tale of three women whose husbands leave them for younger partners. The book, published by Simon & Schuster, became a bestseller, and the movie was one of the biggest box office hits when it came out. Other novels included Flavor of the Month (1994), The Bestseller (1996), Switcheroo (1998), and Young Wives (2000).

Goldsmith made millions off her First Wives and routinely raked in six— and seven-figure sums for subsequent novels and movie rights.

She also wrote several books for children under the name Justine Rendal.

Goldsmith died as a result of complications from the administration of anesthesia before cosmetic surgery. She was 54.

Her last two books were published posthumously in 2004. Dumping Billy, about a fellow with uncanny powers — women find themselves married within a short time of dating him, but to other people — and Casting On, which Nick Ellison described as a 2004 version of Georgy Girl, about an American woman’s love affair with London.