It’s the birthday of American writer Harold Robbins (1916-1997), one of the bestselling authors in history. Robbins used the profits from selling 750 million books to buy yachts, obscene amounts of cocaine, and plenty of mansions and to host orgies at which he thoughtfully provided lots of terry towels, so one does wonder about his laundry bill. (It’s those little details that make an orgy so special.)

Robbins claimed to have been abandoned at a Catholic orphanage, which, along with many other stories he told about his life, was a complete lie; these lies were believed for years after his death before being debunked. Robbins was actually raised in Brooklyn by his Jewish father and a stepmother; his mother had died when he was very young. Robbins said he dropped out of high school (he didn’t), joined the navy (nope, he worked in food service), and made and lost millions by the age of 20 (not even a little bit). He also said his first wife was a Chinese dancer who died of a parrot bite. She wasn’t and didn’t.

Robbins’ plain old ordinary father-in-law got him a job as a clerk and then budget director for Universal Pictures; in 1948 he published his first novel, Never Love a Stranger, jampacked with sex and crime. His most famous novel was The Carpetbaggers (1961), loosely based on the lives of Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow and also containing plenty of sex and violence. In fact, all of his 20 plus novels were jampacked with prurient sex, glamorized crime, illegal drugs, and prostitutes, but it must be said that as works of literature, Robbins’ novels—nope, no, I’m sorry, they were just awful. Really, really badly written.

Robbins married three times and the two divorces nearly destroyed his finances, but at least his relationships with his two daughters—nope, sorry, those relationships also went south. Robbins ended his life publishing books actually written by ghostwriters. If you’d like to read more about his life, read the biography by Andrew Wilson called Harold Robbins: The Man Who Invented Sex (2007). But have a terry towel handy because you’re going to want a good cleansing shower afterward.

(My apologies: I forgot to work in the words “debaucheries,” “seamy,” and “dissolute.” Please go back through this post and sprinkle them in as appropriate.)

Have a bracingly wholesome Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.