Richard David Bach was born on the 23rd of June 1936. He was born in Oak Park in Illinois. He went to the Long Beach State College. He is also known for his love of flying. Richard Bach served in the United States Navy and the New Jersey Air National Guards fighter wing. His books are mainly autobiographies inspired from his life events. He also worked as a technical writer for ‘Douglas Aircraft’ and a writer for the magazine ‘Flying’.
Bach’s books were mostly related to flying in some way. Aviation had always been his passion but his teachers at school made him realize his talent for writing. So he decided to incorporate his love and talent in the form of his books. His early books were about airplane flying such as in ‘Stranger to Ground’ and later flight was used as a metaphor in his books. His popular book ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ was published in 1970. This book was about a seagull that flew for his love of flying rather than searching for food. The book was published by Macmillan Publishers because others had refused to do so. ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ had some amazing pictures of seagulls flying. This book became the number one bestseller. With less than ten thousand words ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ managed to break all records since ‘Gone with the Wind’ by selling more than a million copies in 1972. This success story ran widely in the media making Richard Bach’s success eminent. It was also made into a feature film under Paramount Pictures Corporation.
Another book by Bach namely ‘Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah’ was published in 1977. This was a story about a man who meets a messiah who is going to quit his mission. Richard Bach has numerous fans all over the world. He also came on a social website and replies to fan mail personally. He has been interviewed many times on the radio and his interviews are also repeated from time to time. Some of Bach’s other books include ‘ A Gift of Wings’ (1974), ‘ There’s No Such Place as Far Away’ ( 1979), ‘ Running From Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit’ (1995), ‘Out of my Mind: The Discovery of the Saunders-Vixen’ (1999).
Richard Bach has six children from his wife Betty who also did most of his editing work for his books. However they got divorced in 1970 on the grounds that Richard did not believe in marriage. But he met the actress Leslie Parrish during the shooting of ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, who he married in 1977. She was an important part of his books ‘The Bridge Across Forever’ and ‘One’. These books were about relationships and the concept of soul mates. However this marriage didn’t last either and the couple got divorced in 1999. Bach married the third time this time to Sabryna Nelson-Alexopoulos in April of 1999.
