Clive Cussler
American novelist (1931–2020)
Clive Eric Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have been listed on The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. Cussler was the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks. He was the sole author or main author of more than 80 books. He often placed himself into his books as himself.
Early life
Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, the son of Eric Edward Cussler and Amy Adeline (née Hunnewell), and grew up in Alhambra, California. His father was from Germany and his mother's ancestors were from England.
In his memoir The Sea Hunters: True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks, Cussler revealed that his father served in the Imperial German Army on the Western Front during World War I. Furthermore, one of Cussler's uncles served in the Imperial German Air Service and became a flying ace, shooting down 14 Allied aeroplanes.
He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14 years old. He attended Pasadena City College for two years and then enlisted in the United States Air Force during the Korean War.
“Clive Cussler” enters the record as american novelist (1931–2020). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clive, Cussler and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q366266. VIAF identifies the subject as 56608054. The Library of Congress control number is n81043521. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clive Cussler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.