Background

Ed Victor was born as Edward Victor on September 9, 1939, in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Jack and Lydia Victor.

Education

Ed Victor, after graduating from Bayside High School, began his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in 1960. He continued his studies at Pembroke College and obtained a Master of Letters degree in 1963. His thesis examined the role of the artist as a hero in the works of novelists James Joyce, Henry James, George Moore, and George Gissing.

Living in an immigrant neighborhood, young Victor and his brother learned the value of hard work and getting ahead in life early on. Victor was ambitious, in addition to being an excellent student.

Career

Ed Victor, after obtaining his master's degree in 1963, married an English woman, Micheline Samuels, and began looking for work in London. Victor was captivated by the world of books and literature. He took an entry-level job with the Osborne Press, a subsidiary of the Daily Express newspaper. It was not long before he moved to Weidenfeld and Nicolson publishing house, serving as a kind of editor and tea boy. At first, Victor worked on coffee table book projects, but before long he wanted to be involved with more serious content. When he happened to meet one of the company's owners, George Weidenfeld, in the men's room one day, Victor asked for a promotion.

After that Victor's career progressed quickly. Within three years, he was the company's editorial director. In 1967, he moved on to Jonathan Cape, another London publisher, where he remained for four years. When Victor's marriage ended in 1970, he left book publishing and collaborated with business partners to start a new arts and culture newspaper in London called Ink. Unfortunately for Victor, the venture was short-lived and folded after only a few issues. Victor called this the "first major failure" in his career.

In 1973 Victor returned home to New York for the first time in twelve years and went back to work as a senior editor with the Alfred Knopf publishing house. Around the same time, he met and fell in love with New York lawyer Carol Ryan. The couple took a year off to travel around the world. During the trip, Victor decided that he wanted to return to England, where he would be close to his two sons, and that the time had come to settle into a career and make some money. With this in mind, he took a job as a literary agent with London's John Farquharson agency in 1974.

Victor quickly showed a talent for his new line of work. He negotiated a $ 1.5-million deal for book and movie rights to a now-forgotten novel called The Four Hundred by Stephen Shephard, a kind of Victorian-era version of the 1973 Oscar-winning con-man movie The Sting. This early success set the tone for Victor's career as a literary agent. By late 1976, he was doing so well that he left Farquharson and opened his own agency in 1977.

Victor's diligence and hard work paid off. He went on to become one of the world's most high-profile and successful literary agents. He began dividing his time between homes in London and a summer home in the Hamptons, the exclusive ocean-side community in the New York suburb of Long Island.

Then, semi-retired, Victor no longer sought new clients and turned the day-to-day operations of his agency over to his staff. He devoted himself to favored clients and other initiatives in which he was especially interested. One of these projects was his first book, The Obvious Diet: Your Personal Way to Lose Weight Fast Without Changing Your Lifestyle (2002), which was inspired by his own lifestyle. Although he was a tall man, Victor, like many people, always had a tendency to put on weight if he was not careful in his eating habits. So he worked out a diet for himself, one so successful that he decided to write a book, to share his discoveries. The book also includes recipes and diet tips from some of Victor's celebrity friends, among them talk-show host Larry King and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Explaining his motives for writing the book, Victor told that he simply wanted to see what it was like. However, he also confided that he wanted the book to sell a lot of copies. He didn't write it for the money, although it was always nice for him to make it.

Achievements

• Ed Victor is remembered as one of the world's leading literary agents. He was described as the biggest and best agent ever. He was recognized by his colleagues and clients. Victor was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2016 for his services to literature. His book, The Obvious Diet: Your Personal Way to Lose Weight Fast Without Changing Your Lifestyle, received a warm reception and positive reviews.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Obvious Diet: Your Personal Way to Lose Weight Fast Without Changing Your Lifestyle

    (The Obvious Diet recognizes that the rules you make yours...)

    2002

Views

Quotations: "My parents were not literary, nor well educated, but they imbued me with a feeling that there was nothing I couldn't do. I grew up perceiving life as a long highway littered with green lights."

Membership

Ed Victor was vice chairman and director at the Almeida Theater, trustee of Arts Foundation, and a member of Garrick Club and Beefsteak Club.

• council member

  AIDS Crisis Trust , United Kingdom

  1986 - 1998

Personality

Physical Characteristics: The cause of Victor's death was a heart attack after a long battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Ed was one of the most charming people on the planet, and smart as hell. He drew you out and drew you in. Those personal capabilities allowed him to befriend people and make them want to be represented by him." - Michael Pietsch
  
  "The thing about Ed is he commands respect and he commands respect because he's very straightforward and he's cleverer than everyone else - he doesn't force that on people, but he lets it be known." - Nigella Lawson
  
  "Ed was a one-off: the toughest yet most professional of agents, who would always get the very best deal for his clients. An inveterate party-goer, he often attended three events in an evening." - Ed Victor Literary Agency
  
  "Victor is known for the ruthless bargaining that has won seven-figure advances for his clients and reduced publishers to quivering wrecks." - Katy Guest
  
  "Tall, leonine and bearded, with elegantly swept-back collar-length hair and a penchant for Armani suits and huge cufflinks, Victor looked like an actor playing the part of a successful New York agent in a Hollywood film."

Interests

• travels and opera

• Sport & Clubs

  golf and tennis

Connections

Ed Victor married Micheline Dinah Samuels in 1963. The marriage produced two children, Adam and Ivan. The couple divorced in 1970. Victor married Carol Lois Ryan in 1980. The marriage produced one child, Ryan.

Father:

Jack Victor

Mother:

Lydia Victor

ex-wife:

Micheline Dinah Samuels

Wife:

Carol Lois Ryan