Jonathan Latimer
Jonathan Wyatt Latimer was an American crime writer known his novels and screenplays. Before becoming an author, Latimer was a journalist in Chicago.
Early life and education
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Latimer attended Mesa Ranch School in Mesa, Arizona. He then studied at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1929.During World War II, Latimer served in the United States Navy. After the war, he moved to California and continued his work as a Hollywood screenwriter, including 10 films in collaboration with director John Farrow.
Career
Latimer became a journalist at the Chicago Herald Examiner and later for the Chicago Tribune, writing about crime and meeting Al Capone and Bugs Moran, among others. In the mid-1930s, he turned to writing fiction, starting with a series of novels featuring private eye William Crane, in which he introduced his typical blend of hardboiled crime fiction and elements of screwball comedy.Death
Latimer died of lung cancer in La Jolla, California on June 23, 1983, aged 76.Select bibliography
The William Crane series
- Murder in the Madhouse
- Headed for a Hearse filmed 1937 as The Westland Case; Preston Foster as Crane
- The Lady in the Morgue filmed 1938 ; Preston Foster as Crane
- The Dead Don't Care filmed 1938 as The Last Warning; Preston Foster as Crane
- ''Red Gardenias''
Non-series novels
- The Search for My Great Uncle's Head
- Solomon's Vineyard
- Sinners and Shrouds
- ''Black Is the Fashion for Dying''
Non-crime novels
- ''Dark Memory''
Short stories
- ''A Joke's a Joke''
Screenplays
- The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt
- Topper Returns
- The Glass Key
- Night in New Orleans
- Nocturne
- They Won't Believe Me
- Sealed Verdict
- The Big Clock
- Night Has a Thousand Eyes
- Beyond Glory
- Alias Nick Beal
- Copper Canyon
- Submarine Command, screenplay from his own story, starring William Holden
- The Redhead and the Cowboy
- Botany Bay
- Plunder of the Sun
- Back from Eternity
- The Unholy Wife
- The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays
- The Unchained Goddess
- The Whole Truth
- 32 episodes of the Perry Mason television series
- ''The Greenhouse Jungle''
Other Films Based on Stories by Latimer
- Phantom Raiders 1940, 2nd in a series of Nick Carter movies starring Walter Pidgeon