Richard David Bach (born June 23, 1936) is an American writer. He has written many books about flying, both fiction and non-fiction. His books include Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977), which were among the most popular books in the 1970s.
Most of Bach’s books are based on his own life, using real or imagined events to explain his ideas. His books share his belief that our physical limits and the fact that we die are not real. Bach is known for his interest in flying, and he uses flying as a symbol in his stories. He has flown as a hobby since he was 17 years old. In late August 2012, Bach was seriously hurt when his plane hit power lines while landing near Friday Harbor, Washington. The plane crashed upside down in a field.
Early life
Richard Bach was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Roland R. and Ruth Shaw Bach. His father worked as a manager for a local American Red Cross group. Bach completed his studies at California State University, Long Beach, in 1955.
When Richard was 14 years old, his mother was trying to get a job on the city council in Long Beach, California. The person helping her with her campaign, Paul Marcus, said he flew airplanes. He invited Richard to go on a flight in his Globe Swift.
Aviation career
Bach served in the United States Navy Reserve and later in the New Jersey Air National Guard's 108th Fighter Wing, 141st Fighter Squadron (USAF), as a pilot of the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak fighter plane. After his military service, he worked in several jobs, including as a technical writer for Douglas Aircraft and as a contributing editor for Flying magazine. He also served in the USAF Reserve and was sent to France in 1960. Later in life, he became an air show performer.
In the summer of 1970, Bach and his friend Chris Cagle traveled to Ireland to help film scenes for Roger Corman's movie Von Richthofen and Brown. They flew various World War I aircraft from the Blue Max collection, which belonged to former RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison. Bach and Garrison first met when Bach wrote articles for Avian, a publication Garrison created about aviation.
Most of Bach's books include themes related to flight. His earliest stories focused only on flying aircraft, while his first book, Stranger to the Ground, explored flight in a different way. In his later works, he used flight as a symbol to explore big ideas.
Literary career
In 1963, Richard Bach published his first book, Stranger to the Ground, which describes a mission flight he took from Wethersfield, England, to Chaumont, France. The book received positive reviews from Martin Caidin in The New York Times Book Review and Edmund Fuller in The Wall Street Journal. It received mixed reviews from Peter W. Brooks in The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society. By 1972, the book had sold 17,000 copies, making it the best-selling of Bach's first three books.
In the 1970s, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story about a seagull who flies for the love of flying rather than just to find food, was published by Macmillan Publishers. Earlier, the manuscript had been rejected by other publishers. The story first appeared in Private Pilot magazine and Soaring, the magazine of the Soaring Society of America. The book, which has fewer than 10,000 words and includes photographs of seagulls in flight by photographer Russell Munson, became a number-one bestseller. It sold more than one million copies in 1972 alone. The book's unexpected success was widely reported in the media during the early 1970s.
In 1973, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was adapted into a film with the same name, produced by Paramount Pictures Corporation. The film's soundtrack was composed by Neil Diamond. Bach then filed a lawsuit against producer/director Hall Bartlett, accusing Bartlett of destroying Bach's screenplay for the film and violating a contract clause that required Bach's approval before the film could be released in theaters. Associate producer Leslie Parrish was chosen to mediate between Bach and Bartlett, but the mediation failed. The lawsuit ended with the film being released in theaters with changes to the final version, and Bach's name was removed from the film's screenwriting credits.
In 1975, Bach was the main force behind Nothing by Chance, a documentary film based on his book of the same name. The film focuses on modern barnstorming in the United States during the 1970s. Bach recruited a group of pilot friends to recreate the era of barnstormers.
In 1977, Bach published his second novel, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, which tells the story of a meeting with a modern-day messiah who decides to quit.
On August 31, 2012, Bach was injured during an aircraft landing accident on San Juan Island in Washington. He was landing a 2008 Easton Gilbert G Searey (N346PE), which he nicknamed Puff, at a private airport when the landing gear hit power lines. The plane crashed upside down in a field about two miles from Friday Harbor, damaging two poles and starting a small grass fire.
The day after the accident, Bach was reported to be in serious but stable condition with a head injury and broken shoulder. He was hospitalized for four months. Bach said his near-death experience inspired him to finish the fourth part of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which had originally been published in three parts.
In December 2012, Publishers Weekly reported that Travels with Puff had been sent to Bach's publisher the day before his accident. The book was released on March 19, 2013.
In 2014, Bach published a sequel to Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, which he titled Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student. The book includes the story of Bach's real-life aircraft crash, with the author imagining he is visited by the "messiah," Don Shimoda, who helps him through his medical recovery.
Personal life
Richard Bach had six children with his first wife, Bette Jeanne Franks. Bette was also a pilot and wrote a book called Patterns: Tales of Flying and of Life, which describes her experiences as a pilot and a mother. She helped type and edit many of Richard’s writings about aviation. Bette and Richard divorced in 1970, and Richard did not see his children for many years after that.
Their son, Jonathan, was named after the main character in Bach’s book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Jonathan is now a software engineer and journalist. He wrote a book in 1993 called Above the Clouds, which shares his experience growing up without knowing his father and later meeting him as a college student. Richard approved of the book, though he said it included some personal details he preferred not to be published.
Their other children are Robert, Kristel, James Marcus Bach, Erika, and their youngest daughter, Bethany, who died in an accident at the age of 15 in 1985.
In 1981, Richard married actress Leslie Parrish, whom he met while making the film Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Leslie played an important role in two of his later books, The Bridge Across Forever and One, which describe their relationship and Bach’s ideas about soulmates. They divorced in 1999.
Richard married his third wife, Sabryna Nelson-Alexopoulos, in April 1999. They divorced on April 1, 2011.
Richard has been married to his fourth wife, Melinda Kellogg, since November 2020.