Original Crime Writers
Authors often adapted into film noir.
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Dashiell Hammett was born May 27, 1894, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, to Richard Hammett and Mary Bond. He joined the Baltimore branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in 1915. He enlisted in the US Army's Ambulance Corps in June 1918 and was posted to a camp 20 miles from Baltimore, where he caught the flu, which developed into tuberculosis. He was invalided out of the army in July 1919 and returned to Pinkerton's. Hammett entered the veterans hospital near Tacoma, Washington, with tuberculosis in 1920. Upon his release he worked at Pinkerton's Spokane branch. Hospitalized again with tuberculosis, he met and courted a nurse, Josephine Dolan. In February 1921 he was moved to an army hospital near San Diego. After he was released he married a now-pregnant Josie in San Francisco. Hammett worked for the San Francisco branch of Pinkerton's, but left the agency in 1921 or 22 due to ill health. He took a writing course and sold droll vignettes to "The Smart Set" magazine during 1922, and some short stories to other magazines. He began to sell detective stories to "The Black Mask" from 1923. After the birth of the couple's second daughter in 1926, Hammett gave up freelance writing and became an advertising copy writer for the jeweler Albert Samuels, but left after six months due to ill health. Forced by his tuberculosis to live apart from Jose and the children, the marriage eventually broke up. Hammett supported himself through writing, chiefly for "The Black Mask", now under editor Joe Shaw. Hammett's long short stories were republished in novel form by Alfred Knopf. In 1929 Hammett moved to New York. After the success of his novel "The Maltese Falcon", he was engaged as a screenwriter by Paramount Pictures and moved to Hollywood, where he met Lillian Hellman. He returned to New York in 1931, where he wrote "The Glass Key". "The Thin Man" was published as a magazine serial in 1933. Hammett was encouraged by Hearst to write the "Secret Agent X9" comic strip, which ran from 1934-35, his last original work. In 1942 he re-enlisted in the army and was posted to the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska, where he edited The Adakian. When discharged in 1945, he returned to New York and became President of the NY Civil Rights Congress. In July 1951 Hammett was subpoenaed to testify on the Civil Rights Congress' bail fund, and was jailed for refusing to answer questions. Upon his release from jail, he was presented with a bill by the Internal Revenue Service for $111,000 in back taxes. In failing health, he lived off and on with Hellman. In 1961 he was admitted to New York's Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, where he died on January 10.- Writer
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James M. Cain was a 'Film Noir' author. His father was a professor, and president, of 'Washington College'. His mother was an opera singer in Maryland.
James graduated from the same college in 1910, and became a writer for 'Baltimore American', then 'Baltimore Sun' [still being published] by 1914. He was drafted in 1916, and spent 1918 in France as a writer for the 'Army Times'. When released, he did writing for various publications, and by 1934, his first novel,"The Postman Always Rings Twice", was published. Of Course, a very popular movie in 1946.
With adaptations of his novels[credit only as 'story contributor'],he was much in demand in the 40's in the 'Film Noir' category. But, in 1946, he formed a 'Cain Plan' ["American Authors' Authority"]whereby The writers would have authority of copyrights, and be the representative for them in negotiations with the movie producers and court disputes. Resembling 'S.A.G.', it was opposed by an org. called, "The American Writers' Assoc.". There was a debate carried on in the 'Saturday Review'.
He was married 4 times.- David Goodis was born on 2 March 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer, known for The Edge (1989), Nightfall (1956) and Street of No Return (1989). He was married to Elaine Astor and Grayson Hall. He died on 7 January 1967.
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Jim Thompson was born on 27 September 1906 in Anadarko, Oklahoma, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Paths of Glory (1957), The Killing (1956) and The Getaway (1972). He died on 7 April 1977 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Writer
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Donald E. Westlake was born on 12 July 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Grifters (1990), Payback (1999) and The Stepfather (2009). He was married to Abigail Adams, Sandra Foley and Nedra Henderson. He died on 31 December 2008 in San Tancho, Mexico.- Writer
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Chase was born in London and educated at King's School, Rochester, Kent. He left home at the age of 18 and worked as children encyclopedia salesman and book wholesaler before devoting himself to writing. He wrote his first book No Orchids for Miss Blandish in the age of 33. During his career Chase published some 80 books. Although many of his stories are located in the US, he paid there only two brief visits, one to Miami and one in New Orleans. Most of the author's knowledge of America was derived from encyclopedias, maps and slang dictionaries.- Charles Williams was born in San Angelo, Texas, and grew up there and in New Mexico. He attended Brownsville High School in Texas through the tenth grade. In the United States Merchant Marine, from 1929 to 1939, he served as a radio operator. Williams joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, and between 1939 and 1950 worked as an electronics inspector, a wireless operator, a radar technician, and a radio service engineer. In the course of these careers he lived in Peru, Arizona, Florida, and Switzerland. Williams married Lasca Foster in 1939; they had one daughter, Alison. His first novel, Hill Girl, was rejected by several publishers before the Fawcett publishing company picked it up in 1950 for their line of Gold Medal paperback originals. Williams had beginner's luck; it sold, according to one source, 1,226,890 copies. He went on to publish 21 more novels, gaining enough attention as a member of the "Gold Medal" writers that he was hired to script a few films, including his own The Wrong Venus, filmed as Don't Just Stand There (1968), and Hell Hath No Fury, filmed as _Hot Spot, The (1990/I)_. Williams seems to have been familiar with the saying, "God made the country, man made the city, and the Devil made the small town." His hard-boiled thrillers are often set in the hot, humid, mosquito- and snake-infested hamlets of the Gulf Coast and South Florida in the 1950s and 1960s. His more famous later novels take place on boats or ships on the open sea. He also wrote some very funny comedies, including The Diamond Bikini (1956) and Uncle Sagamore and His Girls (1959), in which a boy chronicles the shenanigans of his scheming uncle. However, Williams's thrillers more usually featured guys who think they can get rich quick when they are seduced by the deceitful promises of beautiful and dangerous dames, or honest, likable types who find themselves in deadly circumstances but are determined to see justice done at last. Although fourteen of his novels were optioned or adapted for film -- the most successful being Dead Calm (1989) -- he received little critical attention in the U.S. However, his books were enormously popular in France, where nearly all were either translated or filmed. His wife Lasca died in the early 1970s of cancer, and Charles went to live alone in a trailer on the border between California and Oregon. The weather there depressed him; he was too in love with sun and sea. His personal finances declined as the popularity of hard-boiled thrillers began to wane. In 1975, he committed suicide. Williams's reputation lives on, stronger than ever, among aficionados of the hard-boiled crime novel, and even his battered paperbacks can sell for $100 or more.
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An American novelist, writer of crime fiction featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe, Raymond (Thornton) Chandler was born in Chicago of an American father and an Anglo-Irish mother. He moved to England when his parents divorced. He attended Dulwich College and studied languages in France and Germany before returning to England in 1907 and becoming a naturalized British subject. He took a civil service job in the Admiralty, which he left in 1912 to return to America, settling in California. After the US entered World War I he enlisted in the Canadian Army, then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. After the armistice he returned to California and got a series of bookkeeping jobs, finally becoming a vice-president with the Dabney Oil syndicate.
All along, however, he had been submitting stories, poems, sketches and essays to a number of periodicals, but when the Depression hit and the bottom fell out of the oil business, he lost his job and turned to writing full-time. He found a niche with stories of the "hard-boiled" school popularized by Dashiell Hammett, and had many of his early stories accepted by Black Mask, the same mystery magazine that had first published Hammett. His first four novels--"The Big Sleep" (1939, filmed 1946 [The Big Sleep (1946)] and 1978 [The Big Sleep (1978)]); "Farewell My Lovely" (1940, filmed 1944 [Murder, My Sweet (1944)] and 1975 [Farewell, My Lovely (1975)]); "The High Window" (1942, filmed 1947 [The Brasher Doubloon (1947)]); and "The Lady in the Lake (1943, filmed 1946 [Lady in the Lake (1946)])--which reworked plots from some of his short stories, were his most successful.
He spent some time in Hollywood as a screenwriter, contributing to Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), the film noir classic The Blue Dahlia (1946) and Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951). He wrote realistically, in stark contrast to the English style of drawing-room puzzle mysteries where an amateur detective always knows more than the police and clues turn up at just the right moment. Chandler dismissed these plots as "having God sit in your lap."- Writer
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Georges Simenon was a Belgian novelist, writing in the French language. He published nearly 500 different novels, and a large number of short stories. He became internationally famous for creating the French police detective Jules Maigret, as the protagonist in a celebrated series of mystery novels. Between 1931 and 1972, Simenon published 75 novels and 28 short stories about Maigret and his supporting cast. The Maigret stories have often been adapted into films, television series, and radio shows.
In 1903, Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium. His parents were the accountant Désiré Simenon and his wife Henriette Brüll. His father worked as an accountant for an insurance company. They were members of the wider Simenon family, a line of peasants from Limburg whose history had been recorded since the 1580s. Simenon's maternal ancestry was primarily German and Dutch. His mother was reputedly a distant descendant of the famed robber Gabriel Brühl (died in 1743). Simenon would later use the family name "Brühl" as one of his pen names.
In 1905, the Simenon family moved to the Outremeuse neighborhood of Liège, where Simenon would spend most of his childhood. In 1911, they moved to a larger house in the same neighborhood. The family started taking in lodgers to supplement their income. The young Simenon regularly interacted with these lodgers, who were apprentices and students of various nationalities. These interactions gave him his first taste of cosmopolitanism.
In September 1914, Simenon started attending the Collège Saint-Louis, a Jesuit high school. He dropped out of high school in June 1918, deciding against taking his year-end exams. He supported himself through a series of odd-jobs. In January 1919, the adolescent Simenon was hired as a journalist by the newspaper "Gazette de Liège". His assignments consistent of "human interest" stories, which were thought to be of trivial importance. Simenon grew interested in the seamier side of life in Liège, and started to frequent bars and cheap hotels in search of information. He also grew interested in police investigations, and attended lectures on police technique by the famed criminologist Edmond Locard (1877-1966).
Simenon wrote his first novel in June 1919, but it was not published in book form until 1921. During the early 1920s, Simenon started hanging out with members of "La Caque", a group of Bohemian artists. He was introduced by them to Régine "Tigy" Renchon, who became his girlfriend. In 1922, Simenon's father died. Simenon took the decision to move with Tigy to Paris, where he got acquainted with ordinary working-class Parisians. The city's bistros, cheap hotels, bars and restaurants would later become settings for his novels.
In 1928, Simenon took an extended sea voyage for a journalistic assignment. He discovered that he liked water travel. In 1929, he had a boat house constructed for himself and his wife, called the "Ostrogoth". They used it to travel through the French canal system. Joining them in their travels was their housekeeper Henriette "Boule" Liberge, who became Simenon's mistress. Their romantic relationship lasted for decades, unlike Simenon's previous short-lived affairs.
In 1930, Simenon wrote the first Maigret story during a boat trip in the Netherlands. It was published the following year. In 1932, Simenon's journalistic assignments caused him to travel across Africa, eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Soviet Union. In 1933, Simenon interviewed the exiled politician Leon Trotsky in Istanbul. Simenon took a trip around the world from 1934 to 1935. For much of the 1930s, Simenon was a permanent foreign resident in France.
During World War II, Simenon lived in Vendée, France. He maintained decent relationships with the German occupation authorities, and negotiated film rights of his books with German studios. Following the end of the war, Simenon was accused of being a German collaborator, but with little apparent evidence. In 1950, the French authorities temporarily forbid him to publish new works as punishment for his supposed collaboration, but the sentence was not enforced.
In 1945, Simenon left France with his wife for an extended stay in Quebec, Canada. He wrote three novels in the local city of Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson. For the following decade, Simenon and his family moved constantly across Canada and the United States. He learned to speak English with relative ease, and so did his mistress Boule. In 1949, Simenon divorced Tigy, but continued living in close proximity with her, in accordance with the divorce agreement. In 1950, Simenon married his second wife Denyse Ouimet (a French-Canadian) in Reno, Nevada. She was 17 years younger than Simenon himself. Denyse was his former secretary, and they had been romantically involved since 1945.
In 1952, Simenon briefly returned to Belgium, as he was made a member of the "Académie Royale de Belgique" (Royal Academy of Belgium). He had not actually lived in Belgium since 1922, but he remained a Belgian citizen and had become the country's most famous writer. Simenon permanently left the United States in 1955. He initially settled back in France, but then decided to move to Switzerland. In 1963, he had a new house constructed for himself in Épalinges, Vaud.
In 1964, Simenon and his wife Denyse separated permanently. His housekeeper Teresa had become his new long-term mistress. In 1978, Simenon was shocked when his daughter Marie-Jo committed suicide at the age of 25. In 1984, Simenon underwent surgery for a brain tumor. He recovered well, but his health further deteriorated during the last years of his life. In September 1989, he died in his sleep while staying in Lausanne,. He was 86-years-old at the time of his death, and had not published any major work for several years.
Simenon's works have remained popular into the 21st century. According to the 2019 version of the Index Translationum by UNESCO, Simenon was the 17th most translated writer on a global scale. In the Index, Simenon outranked the likes of of Astrid Lindgren (18th) and Pope John Paul II (19th). He ranked just below Fyodor Dostoevsky (16th) and Mark Twain (15th).- Writer
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Joseph Damiani, a.k.a José Giovanni, was born on June 22th, 1923, to a Corsican family. He did many little jobs when he was a teenager. Washing dishes in a train-restaurant, lumberjack, coal miner, waiter in a hotel restaurant of Chamonix. He was arrested for fraud and condemned to one year in jail in 1932. During WWII, in 1943, he was a high mountain junior guide but contrary to the official version he was never in the Resistance (Joseph Damiani a.k.a José Giovanni lied all this life about this). In 1944 he came to Paris and got closer to his uncles Ange Santolini, a gangster and Paul Damiani, a Militiaman. He joined himself the Parti Populaire Français (PPF), a fascist party. Joseph Damiani was a collaborationist and a Militiaman and participate to the arrestation of many people who refuse the STO (forced work for the nazi in Occupied France). In August 1944, he pretended he was a german police officer with an accomplice and stole two jewish merchants in Lyon, France. He will later be charged during his trial with facts of kidnapping, torture, robbering and assassination (Roger and Jules Peugeot, May 1945).
He and his accomplice Georges Accad were arrested in June 1945. An other accomplice, Jacques Ménassole, commited suicide to avoid arrest. Paul Damiani was arrested too but escaped during a reconstruction of the Peugeot case. He will be fatally shot in Nice by mobsters in 1946. Joseph Damiani was judged a first time in Marseille in July 1946 for treason and sentenced to 20 years of prison. He tried to escape in 1947 but failed. He was judged a second time in July 1948 for the murder of the Peugeot brothers and was sentenced to death with Georges Accad. After months spent in the death row, they were pardoned by french president Vincent Auriol in 1949 and the death sentence was commuted to life sentence.
In 1956, Joseph was freed. He spend a long time in jail writing, and one of the first things he did after being back to free life was to send his book to editors. They were immediately impressed by "Le trou" ("The hole", slang for prison) and under his "nom de plume", the talented "José Giovanni" was soon published and appreciated. Director Jacques Becker bought the rights of the book and directed it in 1959.
That's how José Giovanni entered the cinema world. He became a well-known dialogue writer, scenarist too, working many times with Jacques Becker. Then he directed his first movie in 1966, "La loi des survivants", while he was still writing novels about gangsters, cops, prison and manly friendship... Some of his films (many are based from his own novels) include Le Rapace (1968), La Scoumoune (1972), Le Gitan (1975) and Le Ruffian (1983). One of his favourite actors was Alain Delon, whom he directed many times. He directed some great French actors as Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura or Jean-Paul Belmondo.
His death row experiment marked him very much. He was, of course, for the abolition of the death penalty and he showed it in many movies. "Deux hommes dans la ville" (1973) ends with an execution, Claude Brasseur's character in "Une robe noire pour un tueur" is supposed to be guillotined at the beginning of the movie... In 1995, he wrote "Il avait dans le coeur des jardins introuvables" (He had in his heart gardens which no one could find), which is the story of his life as a death condemned, and the struggle of his father against the son's doom. Later, in 2001, he directed Bruno Cremer in "Mon père", his own adaptation of his own novel. That was his last movie.
Living in Switzerland with his wife and children since 1969, Giovanni wrote 20 novels, 2 memories' books, 33 scripts, and directed 15 movies and 5 TV movies. After four days spent in the hospital of Lausanne, José Giovanni died at 2 p.m, on April 24th, 2004 from a brain hemorrhage.- Writer
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James Ellroy was born on 4 March 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for L.A. Confidential (1997), Street Kings (2008) and The Black Dahlia (2006).- Writer
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Joseph Wambaugh was born on 22 January 1937 in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Black Marble (1980), Police Story (1973) and The New Centurions (1972). He has been married to Lawana Dee Allsup since 26 November 1955. They have three children.- Writer
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Michael Connelly was born on 21 July 1956 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Blood Work (2002), The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) and The Lincoln Lawyer (2022). He has been married to Linda Carol McCaleb since 5 May 1984. They have one child.- Charles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented, and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: The Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant.
Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About a Soldier."
Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988. - Writer
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Evan Hunter was born on 15 October 1926 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for The Birds (1963), High and Low (1963) and Columbo (1971). He was married to Dragica Dimitrijevic, Mary Vann Hughes (Finley) and Anita R Melnick. He died on 6 July 2005 in Weston, Connecticut, USA.- Writer
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Sébastien Japrisot was born on 4 July 1931 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was a writer and director, known for A Very Long Engagement (2004), One Deadly Summer (1983) and Rider on the Rain (1970). He died on 4 March 2003 in Vichy, Allier, France.- Prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich was born in New York City, but his parents separated when he was young and he spent much of his childhood in Latin America with his father. Then he was sent back to New York to live with his rich, domineering mother, Claire. He attended Columbia University where he wrote his first novel, a Jazz Age piece published in 1926 titled "Cover Charge". Another book, "Children of the Ritz", followed in 1927. Hollywood beckoned but his time there as an (uncredited) screenwriter proved to be unhappy. A disastrous marriage to a producer's daughter failed quickly and he headed back to New York -- and Claire. He found his niche writing suspense stories for magazines such as "Argosy", "Black Mask" and "Thrilling Mystery". Sales were made to Hollywood, his reputation grew, and his bank account increased. Some called him "the Poe of the 20th century". Then his mother sank into a lengthy illness and his output fell as he devoted more and more of his time to her care. By the time she died in 1957, he was "burned out". From then until his death in 1968, he lived a lonely life marked by alcoholism and poor health (he delayed visiting a doctor when his leg started bothering him; he eventually lost it to gangrene). When he died his funeral went unattended.
He bequeathed money to Columbia to set up a creative writing course which was not named after him but after who else?-Claire. - Pierre Boileau was born on 28 April 1906 in Paris, France. He was a writer, known for Vertigo (1958), Diabolique (1955) and Eyes Without a Face (1960). He died on 16 January 1989 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Thomas Narcejac was born on 3 July 1908 in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, France. He was a writer, known for Vertigo (1958), Diabolique (1955) and Eyes Without a Face (1960). He died on 9 June 1998 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Per Wahlöö was born on 5 August 1926 in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He was a writer, known for Man on the Roof (1976), Mördaren - En helt vanlig person (1967) and Nattmara (1965). He was married to Sylvia Nilsson and Inger Andersson. He died on 22 June 1975 in Malmö, Skåne län, Sweden.
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Maj Sjöwall was born on 25 September 1935 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. She was a writer and actress, known for Man on the Roof (1976), Mördaren - En helt vanlig person (1967) and Mannen på balkongen (1993). She was married to Hans J Flodquist and Gunnar Isaksson. She died on 29 April 2020 in Landskrona, Skåne län, Sweden.