Ellison Gets a Storybook Marriage

By marrying billionaire Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison, romance writer Melanie Craft has guaranteed herself quality book material for some time to come -- just as she stops needing the royalties.

Ellison’s longtime live-in girlfriend became his wife just before Christmas, a spokeswoman for the Redwood City, Calif., company said Tuesday. His three previous marriages ended in divorce.

Craft, 35, was waiting tables and engaged to someone else eight years ago when she met Ellison, who ranks sixth on Forbes magazine’s rich list with a net worth of $16.6 billion.

The couple kept such a low profile that the New York Post speculated in December 2001 that Craft was an imaginary girlfriend used by Ellison, 59, to “keep predatory females at bay.”

Not only is Craft nonfiction, but her newest novel may be nonfiction -- at least in part. In “Man Trouble,” due out in May from Warner Books, the romance-author heroine seduces a misbehaving billionaire playboy.

The couple live in Atherton, Calif., with their two cats and nine ducks.