She’s Fallen Out of Love With the Beach

Author Judith Krantz and her producer husband, Steve, have sold their Newport Beach retreat for just under its $4.5-million asking price.

Krantz’s newest book, “Sex and Shopping: Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl” (St. Martin’s Press), is due out in May. She has written 10 bestselling novels, from “Scruples” in 1978 to “The Jewels of Tesa Kent,” published last fall. Several of her novels have been turned into miniseries.

The Krantzes, married 46 years, had owned their beach home, with 50 feet of ocean frontage on the Balboa Peninsula, for almost five years. The four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot house was newly built when they purchased it.

“As much as we’ve loved it, you need to add something new to your lives every five to 10 years,” Krantz said. “We decided to sell, because I am a passionate gardener, but the house was right on the sand.”

There isn’t enough land with sun for gardening at their main residence in Bel-Air, either, so they’re thinking of buying a getaway with some acreage in Paso Robles, Krantz said.

“I’m ready for pink roses and green grass,” she said.

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Novelist-screenwriter-playwright David Stevens, who is adapting J. Randy Taraborrelli’s new novel, “Jackie, Ethel and Joan,” into a four-hour miniseries for NBC, has listed his Newburyport, Mass., home at $1.4 million.

After he sells the federal-style, 6,000-square-foot house, built in 1796, he plans to buy homes in Malibu and Oaxaca, Mexico.

His novel “The Waters of Babylon--About Lawrence After Arabia” (Simon & Schuster) was published this month.

He wrote the screenplay for the 1998 miniseries “Mama Flora’s Family,” which was based on a posthumous Alex Haley novel that Stevens coauthored, and he wrote the screenplay for the 1996 miniseries “The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years.” He also wrote the screenplay for the 1994 movie “The Sum of Us,” which he adapted from his off-Broadway play.

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The longtime Beverly Hills-area home of the late Oscar-winning screenwriter Frank Tarloff has been sold in the low $600,000 range.

Tarloff, who died in June at 83, was among the Hollywood writers blacklisted by anti-communist zealots in the ‘50s.

He and his family moved to England for several years, but he returned to Hollywood after sharing an Academy Award in 1965 for the script of “Father Goose,” starring Cary Grant and Leslie Caron.

The house, purchased by a young couple, has three bedrooms in about 2,600 square feet. It was built in 1958. Tarloff and his wife, Lee, had lived there since 1972. Lee Tarloff, a retired singer, moved to Westwood.

Barbara Tenenbaum of Fred Sands’ Beverly Hills office had the listing.

Hot Property runs Thursdays in SoCal Living and Sundays in Real Estate. Ryon may be reached at ruth.ryon@latimes.com.