Donald Hamilton

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Donald Bengtsson Hamilton (born March 24, 1916 in Uppsala , Sweden , † November 20, 2006 in Visby on Gotland ) was an American writer. His works - which appeared almost exclusively in paperback - included novels, short stories and non-fiction about hunting and life in the great outdoors. He specialized in espionage and crime novels , but also published westerns . Best known is his long-lasting Matt Helm series, which tells the adventures of an undercover agent and assassin on behalf of an American secret service.

Critic Anthony Boucher wrote: “Donald Hamilton brought the harsh, authentic realism of Dashiell Hammett to the spy novel; his stories are compelling and arguably as close to the dirty truth of the espionage business as it has ever been told. ”His best-known novel" Big Country "was filmed as Weites Land .

Life

Hamilton was born on March 24, 1916 in Uppsala , Sweden. At the age of eight he emigrated to the United States with his parents; his father was a well-known doctor and lecturer at some of the most prestigious universities in the USA. Although young Hamilton already knew he wanted to be a writer, he attended the University of Chicago and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1938. He served in the Navy during World War II, but did not get into the war, he stayed in the Naval Academy Annapolis stationed. This time shaped his later, literary work very strongly. In 1941 he married Kathleen Hamilton (nee Stick), she died in 1989. The couple had four children: Hugo, Elise, Gordon, and Victoria Hamilton.

As an experienced hunter and outdoorsman, he wrote articles for outdoor magazines, which he published as a collection in book form. After the death of his wife, he left Santa Fe , where he had spent most of his life. A number of Matt Helm novels are set in the Santa Fe area and the American Southwest in general. When Hamilton became interested in shipping, the books began to develop a nautical background. He lived on his yacht for a while before moving back to his Swedish homeland, where he settled in Visby on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland . He died there on November 20, 2006 at the age of 90.

Hamilton's writing career began in 1946, his earliest work appearing in magazines such as Collier's Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post . Most of his early novels, published between 1954 and 1960, were typical pulp novels : common, formulaic plots with lurid covers and limited character design. The most interesting novel of the time is possibly The Last Apartment is a Coffin , also published under the title Treason in the Eyes (in the original: Assignment: Murder or Assassins Have Starry Eyes ) in which a mathematician who is involved in building an atomic bomb , his must free the kidnapped woman from the hands of a group of shadowy villains.

From 1953, Hamilton also made a name for himself as a writer of Western novels. His greatest success was the novel The Big Country , after which, in 1958, directed by William Wyler, the eponymous film epic with Gregory Peck , Charlton Heston and Jean Simmons was created, which won an Oscar and is one of the great Hollywood classics.

The Matt Helm series, which began with Decoy in 1960 and comprises 27 books, ending in 1993 with The Damagers , which was no longer published in German , was more substantial. The publisher Fawcett was looking for a new series hero for its Gold Medal series in the style of James Bond, who at that time was still almost unknown in the USA.

Matt Helm, a secret agent specializing in the murder of Nazis, is called back to the service after 15 years as a civilian. He describes his adventures in a sober and nimble tone with occasional dry humor. He describes shootings, knife fights, torture and sexual conquests (which only take place behind the scenes) with a carefully cherished, professional detachment, similar to the dictation of an autopsy report by a pathologist. This detachment defines Helm's character. He's a professional who does his job: his job is killing people.

Hamilton completed another Matt Helm novel The Dominators in 2002 , it has not yet been published.

In the late 1960s, a very loose, based on the Matt Helm novels, four-part film series of action comedies with Dean Martin in the title role, which in turn inspired the parodies of Austin Powers by Mike Myers . In 1975 a short-lived television series emerged in which Matt Helm became a retired agent who opened a private detective agency. Steven Spielberg announced in mid-2009 a new, more faithful film adaptation by DreamWorks .

Works

The Matt Helmet Series

Other thrillers

Short stories

Western film

  • 1954 Smoky Valley , novel
  • 1956 Mad River , novel, treachery in the eyes
  • 1958 The Big Country , novel
  • 1960 The Man From Santa Clara / The Two-Shoot Gun , novel
  • 1960 Texas Fever , novel

Non-fiction

  • 1970 On Guns and Hunting

Autobiographical

  • 1980 Cruises with Kathleen

As editor

  • 1967 Iron Men and Silver Stars

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chris Steinbrunner, Otto Penzler (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection. 1976, p. 195.
  2. ↑ http://members.aol.com/MacBorden/intro.html ( Memento from December 21, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Hamilton, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hamilton, Donald Bengtsson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American crime writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Uppsala , Sweden
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 2006
Place of death Visby , Sweden