Howard Browne

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Howard Browne (born April 15, 1908 in Omaha , Nebraska , † October 28, 1999 in Santiago Canyon, Silverado, California , USA ) was an American writer and screenwriter . He wrote two fantasy novels , eight detective novels, and a few short stories. He also wrote scripts for the episodes of numerous television series and films.

Life

Howard Browne grew up as an only child with his mother. His father had died before Howard was born. His mother was a teacher. Howard spent his childhood in Arapahoe and Lincoln . Because he wanted to watch a baseball game, he hitchhiked to Chicago at the age of 17 . He was walking on Michigan Avenue there, and he liked Chicago so much that he stayed there. He later wrote about it: "I fell in love with Chicago straight away, like a woman." and "At that time in Chicago you had the feeling that you could either get rich or get shot on every street corner." Howard Browne rented a room in Chicago and made a living doing various jobs. Up close he got to know the Chicago gang mischief. He witnessed the St. Valentine massacre , Al Capone and gangster rule. Howard Browne married Esther Levy in 1929. With her he had a son and a daughter.

Writing activity

After working in a variety of jobs, including washing dishes, sorting eggs, cladding agents and others, Howard Browne wrote three short stories over a weekend in 1936 and sold them to the Chicago Daily News for $ 15 . Next he tried a novel. Having loved the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs , especially the Tarzan stories , as a child , he decided to write something similar. He took a jungle story from Burroughs and made a list of the adjectives and verbs that occurred there. He used this for his story Warrior of the Dawn , which appeared in a pulp magazine in 1943 and then as a book. Howard Browne sent a copy to Edgar Rice Burroughs, who replied, "... one of the best books I have ever written."

While working on Warrior of the Dawn , Browne began writing tough detective stories. He sent two of these to Mammoth Detective , a magazine owned by the Ziff Davis Publishing Group . In this context, he met the publisher Bernhard Davis, who made Browne the editor of Ziff Davis magazines. Browne edited the magazines Amazing Stories , Fantastic Adventure , Mammoth Detective , Mammoth Mystery , Mammoth Western and South Sea Stories intermittently from 1941 to 1956 . On the side he continued to write detective stories. The meeting with Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell my Lovely was decisive for him . Browne decided to write like Raymond Chandler. Parallel to Chandler's Marlowe he created his own private investigator Paul Pine and wrote his first detective novel Halo in Blood (German: Greetings in Blood ) under the pseudonym "John Evans". In addition to Chandler, James Mallahan Cain was a major influence on Browne. In the following years until 1957, Browne published another 9 detective novels with success.

In 1956, Roy Huggins called his friend Howard Browne to Hollywood. In the years that followed, Howard Browne wrote screenplays for television series such as 77 Sunset Strip , Perry Mason , Maverick , Mannix , The People of Shiloh Ranch , Asphalt Jungle , Columbo , Detective Rockford - call , Simon & Simon and Kobra take over .

Howard Browne taught writing at the University of San Diego . He also edited manuscripts from friends.

Books by Howard Browne

Fantasy

Paul Pine crime novels

  • Halo in Blood. 1946. (No Exit Press, 1988, ISBN 0-948353-11-2 ) (German: Greetings in Blood )
  • Halo for Satan. 1948. (No Exit Press, 1988, ISBN 0-948353-19-8 ) (German: Greetings for Satan )
  • Halo in brass. 1949. (Quill, 1999, ISBN 0-688-02873-X ) (German: Greetings for Laura )
  • The Taste of Ashes. 1957. (Dennis McMillan Publications, 1988, ISBN 0-939767-13-9 ) (German: The taste of ash )
  • The paper gun.

Detective stories without Paul Pine

  • Halo round my dead.
  • If you have tears. Mystery House, New York 1947.
  • Thin Air. 1954. (Carroll & Graf Pub, 1984, ISBN 0-88184-058-0 ) (German: dissolved in air )
  • Pork City. 1988. (St Martins Pr, 1988, ISBN 0-312-01493-7 )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ librarything.com
  2. ↑ Howard Browne: The Taste of Ashes. Bastei Lübbe, 1987, ISBN 3-404-19114-5 , pp. 294-298: Afterword by Martin Compart.
  3. ↑ Howard Browne: The Taste of Ashes. Bastei Lübbe, 1987, ISBN 3-404-19114-5 , pp. 294-298: Afterword by Martin Compart.
personal data
SURNAME Browne, Howard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American crime novelist
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Omaha , Nebraska
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1999
Place of death Santiago Canyon, California