Three interviews with pulpsters - Richard Matheson, Leigh Brackett and Curt Siodmak

Three interviews with pulpsters who would go on to write great movies. These interviews are taken from the University of California Press' Back Stories series.

 

Leigh Brackett: Journeyman Plumber

Interview by Steve Swires

She wrote that [The Big Sleep] like a man. She writes good.

Howard Hawks, quoted in Hawks on Hawks

Leigh Brackett with director Howard Hawks at work on Rio Bravo

Leigh Brackett wrote scripts for Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), Hatari! (1962), El Dorado (1967), and Rio Lobo (1970), as well as for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973). Besides being one of the few successful women screenwriters, she was one of the earliest successful women science-fiction writers, having entered the field professionally in 1939. Her best-known character is the larger-than-life swashbuckling hero Eric John Stark, who first appeared in the pages of Planet Stories in the 1940s and who returned in a series of novels she wrote for Ballantine Books.

(This interview was conducted several years before her death and the posthumous release of The Empire Strikes Back, her final screen credit.)

Rothvin Wallace - Editor, Author

I came across Rothvin Wallace’s name while reading The Cobra Woman in the Thrill Book, September 1 1919.

A quick search turned up an obituary which I thought was worth sharing.

A brief bio:

Born: February 23 1882 in Christiana, Pennsylvania

Died: November 14 1922 in Oceanport, New Jersey

Of interest to the readers of this blog, he wrote more than 30 stories for the pulps in his career from , 1910 to 1922, all for top magazines including People’s, Cavalier, New Story, Argosy, All-Story, Thrill Book, The Popular Magazine and Short Stories. Four serials in the Cavalier, none reprinted in book form.

Rothvin Wallace c. 1917

John Randolph Phillips - author bio online

I came across John Randolph Phillips' name when i was looking at an issue of  The Popular Magazine in the 1930s. At this time Popular was past its peak in the early 1900s-1919 or so, and was further handicapped by the death of its long time editor, Charles Agnew McLean, a couple of years earlier.

Even past its peak, it was still full of readable stories if not quite as exciting, as the rest of the general fiction pulps. John Randolph Phillip's Or Maybe Alaska (The Popular Magazine, August 1st, 1930) is an example of this. 

Or Maybe Alaska - Popular Magazine, August 1, 1930 - Story by John Randolph Phillips, illustration by George H. Wert

The story is told from the point of view of a teenager, Steve Walker, who's run away from home. Steve is currently working in a pool hall managed by a fat, ill-tempered man named Butch who withholds Steve's wages so that he can't walk away.

Into this setup walks a drifting bum, Wirt Coleman, who likes the kid - the affection is mutual and the kid tries to persuade Wirt to take him along on his drifting. Wirt refuses, telling Steve to go home. Wirt also beats Butch in pool games, and Butch decides to get his money back by cheating Wirt in a poker game, with Steve (who Wirt trusts) peeking at Wirt's cards and signalling Butch. Steve refuses, but is physically coerced into going along with Butch's plan. It won't be revealing too much to say that the story has a happy ending for both Steve and Wirt. Nothing outstanding, but nothing to complain about either.

John Randolph Phillips c. 1930 (Photo taken from the Scottsville, Virginia Museum)

Phillips' writing career is similarly unremarkable. He started writing fiction in 1928, placing 2 stories in Street and Smith's Sport Story. He followed this up with 15 and 21 stories in 1929 and 1930, and then dropped to 3-6 stories a year in the 1930s and 1940s. Til 1935, he was exclusively publishing in Street and Smith titles - Sport Story, Popular, Complete Stories, Excitement and Nick Carter. In 1935, he broke into Argosy and never appeared in Street and Smith pulps after the end of that year. 

In the 1940s, his output was mostly in the slicks (American Magazine, Collier's, Country Gentleman among them). In the 1950s, he published a story or two each year. His last story was for Chatelaine in 1967.

Click here to go to the author's bio on the Scottsville, Virginia museum's site.

Donald Francis McGrew - Author, Journalist

I first came across one of Don McGrew's stories in The Frontier, a year ago. After reading one, i wanted more. Came across his other pirate story in The Frontier, thanks to Pulpmags.org. It was as good as the first one, and i got interested. Here's what i found out about him.

Donald Francis McGrew, c. 1930

Elliot W. Chess – Fighter pilot, Author

Elliott Chess c. 1926, courtesy the University of Texas at El Paso

[Recently read Chess’ first story in Western Story magazine, The Sign of the Skull, an unusual western story of revenge set in a pirates’ inn in the Chihuahuan Desert. After reading the story, I wanted to learn more about the author and what I found was enough to warrant this article.]

L.L. Foreman - Western Author

L.L. Foreman was a frequent contributor to the western pulps from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s. His series character Preacher Devlin started in 1934 and appeared in more than 45 stories till 1949, becoming one of the longer lasting series characters in the western pulps. Coincidentally, Star Western had the Deacon Bottle series by Robert E. Mahaffay running at the same time, from 1934 to 1946, about both of whom l should probably have a later article.

Foreman’s stories revolved around character, dialogue and plot rather than frenetic action, and the setting is usually somewhere in the American Southwest, an area he was familiar with. The harsh landscape and weather in the area sometimes figure as plot elements, but more often as a backdrop for the tough characters that are drawn to such areas. In the 1950s and early 60s, a few movies and television episodes were made from his stories, none of which set the screen on fire.

Leonard "London" Foreman, c. 1945

Richard Dermody - Author, Journalist

Author Richard Dermody (1904-1952)

Richard Dermody had, according to the FictionMags Index, almost forty stories published in the pulps from 1942 to 1949. While he wasn’t prolific, he was popular, and had a series of stories about Doc Pierce, a peripatetic conman. The series started in 1942 in Dime Detective, and from then till 1948 he had at least 3 stories every year in that series. Apart from this, he published 17 stories in other magazines, mostly detective stories. Other than that, his only story in Blue Book was accompanied by a biographical article that is the source of most of my information.

Merle Constiner - biographical article

RARE MOMENT—It seldom happens that writer Merle Constiner is seen away from his typewriter, even for a few minutes. Here in one of those rare moments he is pictured in the living room of his 130-year old home in Monroe.

(Journal photo—Barr)

This article about one of my favorite historical mystery and western writers was published in the Middletown, Ohio Journal on April 20, 1958. Constiner created two well-regarded series for Black Mask and Dime Detective, and I enjoy them, but i enjoy his historical fiction in Blue Book and the Country Gentleman more.

Richard Deming - Detective/Mystery author

Read a story by Richard Deming in the  August, 1952 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. The story is “For Value Received” and it’s an excellent revenge story. I wanted to learn something about the author and came across this article in the Dunkirk-Fredonia Evening Observer, July 9^th, 1960. If you have any recommendations of stories by him that you’ve read, leave a note in the comments.

Full Name: Richard Franklin Deming

Born: Apr 25 1915 in Des Moines, Iowa

Died: Sep 05 1983 in Los Angeles, California

Richard Deming - Crime/Mystery/Detective Author c. 1960

Joe Gores - Author, Detective

On the occasion of his 87th birthday comes this article about the author Joe Gores originally published in the San Rafael Independent on Sep 27, 1975. I enjoyed all of his books that i've read so far, the best might be Hammett but the most fun was 32 Cadillacs.

Joe Gores: A writer with a lively past

By Albert F. Nussbaum

Author Joe Gores c. 1975