Evan Hunter (born Salvatore Albert Lombino; October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author of

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

and

mystery fiction Mystery is a genre fiction, fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains wiktionary:mysterious, mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually prov ...

. He is best known as the author of '' 87th Precinct'' novels, published under the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Ed McBain, which are considered staples of

police procedural The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasises the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agency, law enforcement agencies ...

genre. His other notable works include ''The Blackboard Jungle'', a semi-autobiographical novel about life in a troubled inner-city school, which was adapted into a hit 1955 film of the same name. He also wrote the screenplay for

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

’s 1963 film '' The Birds'', based on the

Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her gra ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

. Hunter, who legally adopted that name in 1952, also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon and Richard Marsten, among others.

Life

Early life

Salvatore Lombino was born and raised in New York City. He lived in East Harlem until age 12, when his family moved to the Bronx. He attended Olinville Junior High School (later Richard R. Green Middle School #113), then Evander Childs High School (now Evander Childs Educational Campus), before winning a New York Art Students League scholarship. Later, he was admitted as an art student at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...

. Lombino served in the United States Navy during World War II and wrote several short stories while serving aboard a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

in the Pacific. However, none of these stories was published until after he had established himself as an author in the 1950s. After the war, Lombino returned to New York and attended

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

, where he majored in English and psychology, with minors in dramatics and education, and graduated

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

in 1950. He published a weekly column in the Hunter College newspaper as "S.A. Lombino". In 1981, Lombino was inducted into the Hunter College Hall of Fame, where he was honored for outstanding professional achievement. While looking to start a career as a writer, Lombino took a variety of jobs, including 17 days as a teacher at Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950. This experience would later form the basis for his novel ''The Blackboard Jungle'' (1954), written under the pen name Evan Hunter, which was adapted into the film ''

Blackboard Jungle ''Blackboard Jungle'' is a 1955 American social drama film about an English teacher in an interracial inner-city school, based on the 1954 novel ''The Blackboard Jungle'' by Evan Hunter and adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Brook ...

'' (1955). In 1951, Lombino took a job as an executive editor for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, working with authors such as Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Richard S. Prather, and P.G. Wodehouse. He made his first professional short story sale the same year, a science-fiction tale titled "Welcome, Martians!", credited to S. A. Lombino.

Name change and pen names

Soon after his initial sale, Lombino sold stories under the

s Evan Hunter and Hunt Collins. The name ''Evan Hunter'' is generally believed to have been derived from two schools he attended, Evander Childs High School and Hunter College, although the author himself would never confirm that. (He did confirm that Hunt Collins was derived from Hunter College.) Lombino legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in May 1952, after an editor told him that a novel he wrote would sell more copies if credited to Evan Hunter than to S. A. Lombino. Thereafter, he used the name Evan Hunter both personally and professionally. Evan Hunter 5312

As Evan Hunter, he gained notice with his novel ''The Blackboard Jungle'' (1954) dealing with juvenile crime and the New York City public school system. The film adaptation followed in 1955. During this era, Hunter also wrote a great deal of genre fiction. He was advised by his agents that publishing too much fiction under the Hunter byline, or publishing ''any'' crime fiction as Evan Hunter, might weaken his literary reputation. Consequently, during the 1950s Hunter used the pseudonyms Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, and Richard Marsten for much of his crime fiction. A prolific author in several genres, Hunter also published approximately two dozen science fiction stories and four science-fiction novels between 1951 and 1956 under the names S. A. Lombino, Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, D. A. Addams, and Ted Taine. Ed McBain, his best known pseudonym, was first used with '' Cop Hater'' (1956), the first novel in the 87th Precinct crime series. Hunter revealed that he was McBain in 1958 but continued to use the pseudonym for decades, notably for the 87th Precinct series and the Matthew Hope detective series. He retired the pen names Addams, Cannon, Collins, Marsten, and Taine around 1960. From then on crime novels were generally attributed to McBain and other sorts of fiction to Hunter. Reprints of crime-oriented stories and novels written in the 1950s previously attributed to other pseudonyms were reissued under the McBain byline. Hunter stated that the division of names allowed readers to know what to expect: McBain novels had a consistent writing style, while Hunter novels were more varied. Under the Hunter name, novels steadily appeared throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, including ''Come Winter'' (1973) and ''Lizzie'' (1984). Hunter was also successful as screenwriter for film and television. He wrote the screenplay for the

film '' The Birds'' (1963), loosely adapted from

's eponymous 1952 novelette. Following ''The Birds'', Hunter was again hired by Hitchcock to complete an in-progress script adapting Winston Graham's novel '' Marnie''. However, Hunter and the director disagreed on how to treat the novel's rape scene, and the writer was sacked. Hunter's other screenplays included '' Strangers When We Meet'' (1960), based on his own 1958 novel; and '' Fuzz'' (1972), based on his eponymous 1968 87th Precinct novel, which he had written as Ed McBain. After having thirteen 87th Precinct novels published from 1956 to 1960, further 87th Precinct novels appeared at a rate of approximately one a year until his death. Additionally, NBC ran a police drama called '' 87th Precinct'' during the 1961–62 season, based on McBain's work. From 1978 to 1998, McBain published a series about lawyer Matthew Hope; books in this series appeared every year or two, and usually had titles derived from well-known children's stories. For about a decade, from 1984 to 1994, Hunter published no fiction under his own name. In 2000, a novel called ''Candyland'' appeared that was credited to both Hunter ''and'' McBain. The two-part novel opened in Hunter's psychologically based narrative voice before switching to McBain's customary

style. Aside from McBain, Hunter used at least two other pseudonyms for his fiction after 1960: ''Doors'' (1975), which was originally attributed to Ezra Hannon before being reissued as a work by McBain, and ''Scimitar'' (1992), which was credited to John Abbott. Hunter gave advice to other authors in his article "Dig in and get it done: no-nonsense advice from a prolific author (aka Ed McBain) on starting and finishing your novel". In it, he advised authors to "find their voice for it is the most important thing in any novel".

Dean Hudson controversy

Hunter was long rumored to have written an unknown number of pornographic novels, as Dean Hudson, for William Hamling's publishing houses. Hunter adamantly and consistently denied writing any books as Hudson until he died. However, apparently his agent Scott Meredith sold books to Hamling's company as Hunter's work (for attribution as "Dean Hudson") and received payments for these books in cash. While notable, it is not definitive proof: Meredith almost certainly forwarded novels to Hamling by any number of authors, claiming these novels were by Hunter simply to make a sale. Ninety-three novels were published under the Hudson name from 1961 to 1969, and even the most avid proponents of the Hunter-as-Hudson theory do not believe Hunter is responsible for all 93.

Personal life

He had three sons: Richard Hunter, an author, speaker, retired advisor to chief information officers on business value and risk issues, and harmonica player; Mark Hunter, an academic, educator, investigative reporter, and author; and Ted Hunter, a painter, who died in 2006.

Death

A heavy smoker for many decades, Hunter had three heart attacks over a number of years (his first in 1987) and needed heart surgery. A precancerous lesion was found on his

larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ (anatomy), organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal ...

in 1992. This was removed, but the cancer later returned. In 2005, Hunter died in Weston, Connecticut from

laryngeal cancer Laryngeal cancer is a kind of cancer that can develop in any part of the larynx (voice box). It is typically a squamous-cell carcinoma, reflecting its origin from the epithelium of the larynx. The prognosis is affected by the location of the tumo ...

. He was 78.

Awards

*Edgar Award nomination for Best Short Story, "The Last Spin" (''Manhunt'', Sept. 1956)
Edgar Award nomination
for Best Motion Picture, ''The Birds'' (1964) *Edgar Award nomination for Best Short Story, "Sardinian Incident" (''Playboy'', Oct. 1971) *Grand Master, Mystery Writers of America (1986) *Diamond Dagger, British Crime Writers Assn (first American recipient, 1998)

for Best Series of the Century (2000) *Edgar Award nomination for Best Novel, ''Money, Money, Money'' (2002)

Works

Novels

Collections

*1956: '' The Jungle Kids (Short Stories)'' (short stories by Evan Hunter) *1957: ''The Merry, Merry Christmas'' *1957: '' On the Sidewalk Bleeding'' *1960: '' The Last Spin & Other Stories'' *1962: ''The Empty Hours'' (87th Precinct short stories by Ed McBain) *1965: '' Happy New Year, Herbie'' (short stories by Evan Hunter) *1972: '' The Easter Man (a Play) And Six Stories'' (by Evan Hunter) *1982: ''The McBain Brief'' (Short stories by Ed McBain) *1988: ''McBain's Ladies'' (87th Precinct short stories by Ed McBain) *1992: ''McBain's Ladies, Too'' (87th Precinct short stories by Ed McBain) *2000: '' Barking at Butterflies & Other Stories'' (by Evan Hunter) *2000: '' Running from Legs'' (by Evan Hunter) *2006: ''Learning to Kill'' (short story collection by Ed McBain, published posthumously, featuring works written 1952-57)

Autobiographical

*1998: '' Me & Hitch!'' (by Evan Hunter) *2005: ''Let's Talk'' (by Evan Hunter)

Plays

*'' The Easter Man'' (1964) *'' The Conjuror'' (1969)

Screenplays

*'' Strangers When We Meet'' (1960) *'' The Birds'' (1963) *'' Fuzz'' (1972) *'' Walk Proud'' (1979)

Teleplays

*'' The Chisholms'', CBS miniseries starring Robert Preston (1979) *'' The Legend of Walks Far Woman'' (1980) *'' Dream West'' (1986)

As editor

*2000: '' The Best American Mystery Stories'' (by Evan Hunter) *2005: ''Transgressions'' (collection of crime

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

s by various authors edited by Ed McBain)

Incomplete novels

* ''Becca in Jeopardy'' (Near completion at the time of Hunter's death. Apparently to remain unpublished.)

Film adaptations

*''

'' (1955) by

Richard Brooks Richard Brooks (born Reuben Sax; May 18, 1912 – March 11, 1992) was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and film producer. Nominated for eight Academy Awards in his career, he was best known for ''Blackboard Jungle'' (1955), '' ...

, from ''Blackboard Jungle'' *'' High and Low'' (1963) by

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

, from ''King's Ransom'' *'' Mister Buddwing'' (1966) by

Delbert Mann Delbert Martin Mann Jr. (January 30, 1920 – November 11, 2007) was an American television and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film '' Marty'' (1955), adapted from a 1953 teleplay which he had also directed. ...

, from ''Buddwing'' *'' Last Summer'' (1969) by Frank Perry, from ''Last Summer'' *'' Sans mobile apparent'' (1971) by Philippe Labro, from ''Ten Plus One'' *'' Every Little Crook and Nanny'' (1972) by Cy Howard, from ''Every Little Crook and Nanny'' *'' Blood Relatives'' (1978) by

Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...

, from ''Blood Relatives'' *'' Lonely Heart'' (1981) by

Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary '' Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won t ...

, from ''Lady, Lady, I Did It''

References

WNYC WNYC is an audio service brand, under the control of New York Public Radio, a non-profit organization. Radio and other audio programming is primarily provided by a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations: WNYC (AM) and WNYC- ...

(archived)
2005 interview
with David Bianculli at NPR {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Evan 1926 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists 20th-century American short story writers American male screenwriters Hunter College alumni Cooper Union alumni American television writers American children's writers American mystery writers 20th-century American memoirists Novelists from New York (state) People from East Harlem Writers from the Bronx Screenwriters from New York City American writers of Italian descent Deaths from laryngeal cancer in the United States Cartier Diamond Dagger winners Edgar Award winners Deaths from cancer in Connecticut American male short story writers 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American male television writers American male dramatists and playwrights American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers United States Navy personnel of World War II 20th-century American screenwriters 20th-century pseudonymous writers 21st-century pseudonymous writers