The American author Larry Collins, who formed a team with Dominique Lapierre to write best-sellers including "O Jerusalem" and "Is Paris burning?" died Monday in the south of France at the age of 75, Lapierre said. Collins died of a brain haemorrhage in hospital in the Riviera town of Frejus.
Born in Connecticut in 1929, Collins came to France in 1954 to do his military service at the Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), then based outside Paris. Two years later he joined the Paris bureau of United Press International (UPI).
With Lapierre he specialised in highly-researched dramatisations of historical events such as the creation of Israel ("O Jerusalem"), Indian independence ("Freedom at midnight"), and the end of the German occupation of Paris ("Is Paris burning?").
They also co-wrote "Or I'll dress you in mourning" - a biography of the Spanish bullfighter El Cordobes - and two fiction thrillers about terrorist plans to destroy New York, "The Fifth Knight" and "Is New York Burning?"
Collins also wrote thrillers under his name alone.
The author, who had two sons, will be cremated after a funeral Thursday at the town of Ramatuelle where he lived from 1976, Lapierre said.