The View from the End

As 2009 winds down to its close, let’s take a moment to remember some of the fine crime-fiction-related folk who we lost over the last 12 months:

Gene Barry, the star of such TV crime dramas as Burke’s Law and The Name of the Game. He also fictionalized a real-life lawman (who later re-created himself as a New York sportswriter) in Bat Masterson. Barry turned 90 years old last June.

Ray Browne, a professor emeritus at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University, who launched the excellent magazine Clues: A Journal of Detection in 1980. Browne was 87.

Paul Burke, who starred as New York Police detective Adam Flint in the 1958-1963 ABC-TV police procedural series Naked City, a role that earned him two Emmy nominations. Burke died at age 83.

Philip Carey, who portrayed Raymond Chandler’s best-known private investigator in the 1959-1960 ABC-TV series Philip Marlowe, before spending more than two decades on the soap opera One Life to Live. Carey was 83 years old.

David Carradine, the star of TV’s Kung Fu. He was 72.

Dennis Cole, who starred as a rookie detective on the ABC-TV crime drama Felony Squad, and then went on to play a soldier of fortune in the western-detective series Bearcats! and a devious casino owner in the 1975 TV pilot for Barbary Coast. Cole was 69 years old.

Michael Cox, who wrote a pair of noteworthy historical thrillers, The Meaning of Night (2006) and The Glass of Time (2008). He died at age 60 after a career-changing bout with cancer.

Lionel Davidson, a UK thriller writer who won three Gold Dagger Awards from the British Crime Writers’ Association, the first of those for his 1960 novel, The Night of Wenceslas. Davidson was 87.

Farrah Fawcett, the blond Texas-born model, poster girl, and actress who starred in the 1970s “jiggle TV” hit Charlie’s Angels. Fawcett was only 62 years old.

Barbara Franchi, who was responsible for launching the Web site Reviewing the Evidence. She was 73 years old.

Celia Fremlin, who won the Edgar Award for Best Novel for her 1958 book, The Hours Before Dawn. She was 95 years old.

Lyn Hamilton, the Canadian author of almost a dozen books featuring Toronto antiques dealer Lara McClintoch. Hamilton was 65.

H. Paul Jeffers, who in the 1980s penned a trio of novels about mid-20th-century cop-turned-gumshoe Harry McNeil. Jeffers was 75.

Stuart M. Kaminsky, a Mystery Writers of America (MWA) Grand Master who wrote novels featuring 1930s Hollywood P.I. Toby Peters, Moscow Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, world-weary former process server Lew Fonesca, and cantankerous Chicago police detective Abe Lieberman. Kaminsky was 75.

Karl Malden, who co-starred with Michael Douglas in the 1970s police procedural series The Streets of San Francisco. Malden was 79.

Patrick McGoohan, the Emmy Award-winning Irish star of The Prisoner and Secret Agent, and apparently the only actor to guest star in four episodes of the NBC Mystery Movie series Columbo. McGoohan was 80 years old.

Ricardo Montalban, the Mexican-born actor who starred in Fantasy Island, but also boasted appearances on such TV crime dramas as Ironside, Columbo, and Murder, She Wrote. He was 88 years old.

John Mortimer, the UK barrister turned novelist, who created and further developed fictional London lawyer Horace Rumpole over a span of more than two dozen books. Mortimer was 85.

Sister Carol Ann O’Marie, the Catholic nun turned mystery writer who produced 11 novels featuring San Francisco-based amateur sleuth Sister Mary Helen. She was 75.

Barbara Parker, the author of a series novels featuring Miami lawyers Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana, beginning with Suspicion of Innocence and ending with Suspicion of Rage. She was 62.

James Pattinson, who wrote more than 100 thrillers and sea novels between the late 1950s and the late ’80s, including The Mystery of the Gregory Kotovsky and The Unknown. Pattinson was 94.

William Safire, who once served as a speechwriter for disgraced Republican U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and for many years penned columns about politics and language for The New York Times. In addition, Safire composed the 1977 crime novel Full Disclosure and the 1995 thriller Sleeper Spy. He was 79.

Dick Stodghill, a former newspaperman who contributed to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, with many of his yarns featuring 1930s Akron private eye Jack Eddy. He was 84.

William G. Tapply, creator of the Brady Coyne and Stoney Calhoun series, who died in July at age 69.

Robert Terrall, who saw his first thriller novel published in 1943, and went on to compose (under the pseudonym “Robert Kyle”) a popular series of novels featuring Manhattan private eye Ben Gates. Terrall died in March at age 94.

Donald E. Westlake, the three-time Edgar Award-winning author who created such memorable series protagonists as unlucky thief John Dortmunder and professional criminal Parker. Westlake was also an MWA Grand Master. Technically, he died on New Year’s Eve 2008, but I’m going to include him here. Westlake was 75 years old.

Collin Wilcox, the actress who played Mayella Ewell, the young white woman responsible for falsely accusing a black man of rape in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. She was 74.

Edward Woodward, the British star of Callan, The Equalizer, and many movies, including The Wicker Man. He was 79.

This doesn’t purport to be a comprehensive list. But is there any famous name I’ve missed mentioning?

READ MORE: “Farewell and Good Night,” by B.V. Lawson
(In Reference to Murder).

Death of a Dapper Dude

Damn! Just six months after The Rap Sheet celebrated actor Gene Barry’s 90th birthday, the star of such TV crime dramas as Burke’s Law and The Name of the Game has “died of unknown causes ... at a rest home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills,” according to The Associated Press.

Ivan G. Shreve Jr. has posted an appreciative obit in his Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. It reads, in part:

Barry became a household name on television in the late ’50s/early ’60s by playing sharply-dressed lawmen in two popular series: the NBC-TV western Bat Masterson (1958-’61) and the ABC-TV crime drama Burke’s Law (1963-’65). The latter show may well be his best-remembered showcase; in so much as he reprised the role of millionaire police commissioner Amos Burke in a short-lived spin-off entitled Amos Burke, Secret Agent and a short-lived revival of the original Burke’s Law series seen on CBS in 1994-’95. Law was one of the early contributions to the cathode ray tube of über-producer Aaron Spelling, and was a blueprint of sorts for later Spelling productions like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. ...

Barry also played a role in the embryonic version of what later became the television mystery hit Columbo by co-starring alongside future star Peter Falk in Prescription: Murder (1968).

Barry (born Eugene Klass) demonstrated a screen presence that was hard not to appreciate--suave, sophisticated, confident. I can’t recall seeing him in any role that I didn’t think was enriched by his participation. Rest in peace, sir.

READ MORE: “Gene Barry, Actor of TV, Film and Stage, Dies at 90,” by Michael Pollack (The New York Times); “‘Bat Masterson’ Star Played the Dapper Hero,” by Becky Krystal (The Washington Post); “Gene Barry Fought Martians with Science,” by Bob Calhoun (Open Salon); “R.I.P., Gene Barry,” by Tanner (Double O Section); “This Week in TV Guide: August 7, 1965,” by Mitchell Hadley (It’s About TV).

The Grim Reaper Stays on Task

Yesterday we reported on the death of Edward Woodward, star of The Equalizer. Now comes word of the passing this last Sunday of yet another actor, Dennis Cole, who was known for his work on at least two TV series of note to crime-fiction enthusiasts.

As blogger Ivan G. Shreve Jr. recalled in a post earlier today, the Detroit, Michigan-born Cole’s “best known television showcase was as the rookie Detective Jim Briggs on the ABC-TV crime drama Felony Squad, which had a respectable run from 1966 to 1969.” However, Cole also starred with Rod Taylor in the short-run, 1971 CBS western-detective series Bearcats! about two soldiers of fortune who roamed the American Southwest during the second decade of the 20th century, helping people in trouble. The program took its name from the automobile Taylor and Cole drove: a 1914 Stutz Bearcat.

Cole almost added a third series to his resume, but he was axed at the last minute. After starring in the May 1975 TV pilot film Barbary Coast--playing a slick but shady saloon owner in San Francisco’s pleasure quarter of the 1870s opposite William Shatner, whose role was that of a government agent and master of disguise--he was replaced before the show debuted in September 1975 in favor of Doug McClure. It wasn’t a smart switch; Cole had a bit of mysteriousness and danger about him as gambler-turned-businessman Cash Conover, while McClure substituted boyish exuberance that made the whole venture seem sillier than it should have been. (The show’s “family hour” scheduling didn’t help any, either.) Screenwriter Douglas Heyes created both Bearcats! and Barbary Coast.

As the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) notes, Cole appeared in the TV drama Bracken’s World and later guested on such shows as The Streets of San Francisco, Police Story, The Fall Guy, Mike Hammer, and Murder, She Wrote. Prior to becoming an actor, he was employed as a male model. And Cole was married for three years to Jaclyn Smith, on whose series, Charlie’s Angels, he was featured several times.

FOLLOW-UP: YouTube hosts a collection of promo spots for TV shows that premiered during the fall of 1975. Among those is one for Barbary Coast (slotted between ads for On the Rocks and Matt Helm). The spot concludes by telling viewers that “Doug McClure stars as Cash. William Shatner stars as Cable.” Only one problem: all of the clips seem to come from the pilot film, and show Dennis Cole in the Cash role. Oops.

Tough But Not Immortal

There’s some very sad news coming out of Britain this morning. To quote from The Daily Mail’s lengthy obituary:

Veteran actor Edward Woodward, who was best known for his roles in The Wicker Man and The Equalizer, died today.

The 79-year-old had been suffering from various illnesses, including pneumonia, and passed away at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro, his agent said.

Janet Glass released a statement praising his ‘brave spirit and wonderful humour’.

It said: ‘Universally loved and admired through his unforgettable roles in classic productions such as Breaker Morant, The Wicker Man, Callan, The Equalizer and many more, he was equally fine and courageous in real life, never losing his brave spirit and wonderful humour throughout his illness. ...’

Although he started out as a Shakespearean actor, the success of Callan (the 1967-1972 series in which he played a professional killer employed by a mysterious British government intelligence service) helped to typecast him as a smooth but hard-nosed operator. The Equalizer sent him up that same alley. Again according to The Daily Mail, “one magazine poll voted him ‘the male TV star more women would like to cuddle than any other’, and he was labelled a sex symbol for his portrayal [in The Equalizer] of the ice cool, but charming ex-CIA agent Robert McCall--a vigilante who operates his own one-man security service.” Woodward exploited that image again in the short-lived, action-oriented UK crime drama CI5: The New Professionals (1999), playing the head of a fictional intelligence agency, with a team that included the lovely Lexa Doig.

More recently, Woodward had joined the cast of the long-running British soap opera EastEnders.

READ MORE: “Edward Woodward, 79: British Leading Man Personified ‘the Actor’s Life,’” by Adam Bernstein (The Washington Post); “What Do You Call a Man with Three Planks of Wood on His Head?” by Charlie Williams (The Charlie Williams Blog); “The Horn Section Salutes: Edward Woodward (1930-2009),” by Hal Horn (The Horn Section); “R.I.P., Edward Woodward,” by Tanner (Double O Section).

Soupy’s Final Bow

Another character from my boyhood has passed on to that great entertainment venue in the sky: Milton Supman, better known as the “rubber-faced” comedian and TV personality Soupy Sales, has died at age 83 in New York City.

The Web site Television Obscurities notes, “During the 1950s and 1960s he hosted a children’s show titled Lunch with Soupy Sales; at various times it aired locally and nationally. He was also a regular fixture on game shows like What’s My Line? and The Hollywood Squares.” Variety adds that Sales’ “anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs.”

The comic’s pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.

“I’ll probably be remembered for the pies, and that’s all right,” Sales said in a 1985 interview.

The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, TV Squad, and Ivan G. Shreve Jr.’s Thrilling Days of Yesteryear all carry substantive obituaries.

READ MORE: “The Hat Squad: Soupy Sales, Pie-oneer,” by Toby O’B (Inner Toob).

First Thoughts on Kaminsky’s Last Day

It is with shock that I just received the news about crime novelist Stuart M. Kaminsky passing away earlier today. Named in 2006 as a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and the author of four well-established detective series, the prolific Kaminsky just turned 75 years old last month. As far as I can tell, the cause of his death has not yet been reported.

Blogger-critic Sarah Weinman quotes a Facebook message that the author’s daughter, Tasha Kaminsky, released hours ago:

I’m posting with great sadness. My father passed away peacefully October 9, 2009. My mother, Enid Perll, and I, encourage you to donate to a charity of your choice in his name. He also strongly supported the United Negro College Fund, Hospice Care, Congregation Shaare Zedek (St. Louis, Mo.) and Congregation Temple Beth Shalom (Sarasota, Fla.). I will be checking his Facebook consistently for months to come and answering questions to the best of my ability. Thank you for your well wishes and prayers.

I had the opportunity in 2002 to interview Kaminsky for January Magazine. This followed many years of my reading and appreciating his crime fiction. My introduction to Kaminsky came in the early 1980s, when I picked up a paperback copy of his first period private-eye mystery, Bullet for a Star (1977). “A lighthearted twist on classic, hard-boiled American detective fiction,” I wrote in January, “Bullet introduced Toby Peters (né Pevsner), a disheveled, divorced and taco-loving former security officer with Warner Bros. Studio, who’d been fired in 1936 (after ‘breaking the arm of a Western star who had made the mistake of thinking he was as tough in person as he was on the screen’), and subsequently hung out his shingle as the most low-rent of private eyes. This job change, however, didn’t greatly alter his clientele. He’s continued to work for early 1940s celebrities, both Hollywood habitués and others.” Among his clients were leading man Errol Flynn, reclusive billionaire-aviator Howard Hughes, Dracula star Bela Lugosi, physicist Albert Einstein, and actress Bette Davis. Kaminsky penned 24 Peters books, the last of those being Now You See It (2004), in which he sought to prove magician Harry Blackstone innocent of murder.

In addition to his Peters novels, Kaminsky penned 15 novels starring Moscow Police Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, “an honorable man in his 50s who, working within a system rife with corruption, has earned the distrust of his superiors and the KGB, because he doesn’t always follow procedures.” Rostnikov was introduced in Death of a Dissident (1981); his most recent outing came in People Who Walk in Darkness, which debuted only last year. A 16th Rostnikov novel, A Whisper to the Living, is due out in January 2010 from Forge Books.

From Kaminsky’s pen--or at least from his Macintosh computer--came two other series, as well. The first starred a world-weary former process server, Lew Fonesca, who, following his wife’s death, relocated to southern Florida from Chicago (where Kaminsky grew up, an avid fan of private-eye fictionist Thomas B. Dewey) to become “an unlicensed peeper.” The low-key Fonesca yarns began with Vengeance (1999) and ended--unless there’s another one of those books waiting for publication, too--with Bright Futures (2009). Kaminsky wrote another 10 novels about Abe Lieberman, a cantankerous but astute 60-something Chicago police detective, and his Irish Catholic partner, Bill Hanrahan--“the Rabbi and the Priest,” as they’re known out on the Windy City streets. Lieberman’s Folly (1990) was the first of those books to see the light of print; The Dead Don’t Lie (2007) was the most recently published.

Over the decades, Stuart Melvin Kaminsky also wrote a couple of books based on the 1970s TV series The Rockford Files, at least three tie-ins to the CBS-TV series CSI: New York, screenplays for movies and the TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery, and biographies of film-world personalities such as Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. “But he should be remembered just as much,” writes Weinman, “for what he gave back to the community as a whole and how he helped writers, from Sara Paretsky (who dedicated Indemnity Only, her first V.I. Warshawski novel, to him) to those he taught over the years and others who benefited from being selected by an anthology he edited--including On a Raven’s Wing, published at the beginning of this year, which celebrated Edgar Allan Poe’s bicentennial with new works by authors well-known and unknown tipping their hat to the old master.”

After living for many years in Chicago, and teaching at Northwestern University, Kaminsky moved to Sarasota, Florida, in 1989. I understand that only months ago, he and his wife relocated once more, this time to St. Louis, Missouri.

“A very warm, witty, wonderful guy, and a terrific writer” is how fellow author Max Allan Collins remembers Kaminsky. I shan’t disagree. Although I never actually met Kaminsky, I had many opportunities to communicate with him via letters and e-mail, not only in association with that long-ago January Magazine exchange, but also having to do with an earlier profile I did of Toby Peters for Stephen Smoke’s now-forgotten Mystery Magazine and requests for comments on a number of subjects (including “overlooked ... or underappreciated” crime novels). He was never less than generous with his time and expertise in this field.

I think I’ve read all but a small handful of Kaminsky’s novels. He was a confident, comfortable stylist with a taste for quirky and humorous, but never less than believable characters, people revealed by their responses to challenging circumstances. I looked forward to reading each new book born of Kaminsky’s imagination. I can now look forward only to re-reading them in his profound absence.

UPDATE: An obituary in Florida’s Sarasota Herald Tribune provides these details about Kaminsky’s declining health: “He and his wife, Enid Perll, had moved [to Missouri] last March to await a liver transplant to treat the hepatitis he contracted as an army medic in the late 1950s in France. He suffered a stroke just two days after their arrival in St. Louis, which made him ineligible for a transplant.” The paper adds that “Funeral services in St. Louis are pending; a memorial service will be held in Sarasota next year.”

READ MORE: “Stuart Kaminsky Has Passed Away,” by Lee
Goldberg (A Writer’s Life); “Stuart M. Kaminsky, 75, Dies,” by Peter Rozovsky (Detectives Beyond Borders); “Stuart Kaminsky, 1934-2009,” by Sara Paretsky (The Outfit); “Ray Browne and Stuart Kaminsky, R.I.P.,” by Francis M. Nevins (Mystery*File).

A Saintly Baker

Maybe its age catching up to me, but I seem to be more aware of people who dominated my younger life passing away. One such figure is Robert S. Baker, who died on September 30. Baker’s name became familiar to me in the late 1960s and early ’70s during the heyday of British TV crime on Lew Grade’s ATV/ITC network. Baker was an accomplished cameraman, director, producer, and writer, probably best remembered for his partnership with the late Monty Berman. Those two specialized in injecting an American “feel” into crime thrillers such as The Saint, The Persuaders!, and The Baron. I loved the shows that Baker and Berman produced, especially Steve Forrest’s The Baron, which lives on only in my memory.

The London Times featured a Baker obituary this last weekend:

With Monty Berman, Robert S. Baker was a prolific producer of cheaply made British B-films that enlivened the first half of many a double bill during the 1950s, before turning to television with shows including The Saint and The Persuaders!

The adventures of Simon Templar, alias the Saint, had successfully featured on radio and in the cinema but not on the small screen, and it was a notable coup for Baker and Berman to acquire the TV rights to “the Robin Hood of crime” from his creator, Leslie Charteris. Baker and Berman first offered the project to Associated Rediffusion, which turned it down as too expensive, but it was taken up and generously financed by Lew Grade’s ITC.

Although Grade preferred Patrick McGoohan, and Charteris favoured David Niven, the leading role went to Roger Moore, whose easygoing charm proved to be perfect casting. The Saint was a huge popular success in Britain, where it ran between 1962 and 1969, and was sold to more than 60 countries.

The son of a furrier, Baker was born in the East End of London in 1916. He was given the name Sidney but adopted Robert when he was in the Army and found himself surrounded by Sidneys. After leaving school he won prizes as a photographer, made amateur films and went travelling before joining up at the start of the Second World War.

He became a member of the Army Film Unit and met Berman while they were both serving as sergeants in the Eighth Army. At the end of the war he was one of the first British soldiers to enter the ruined Reich Chancellery in Berlin, a moment captured in a photograph held in the Imperial War Museum.

In 1948 he and Berman formed their own production company, Tempean. Relying initially on finance from friends and relatives, including Berman’s father, their first film was Date with a Dream, an evocation of the wartime concert party, which starred Terry-Thomas and Jean (later Jeannie) Carson and gave Norman Wisdom his first film role.

Baker and Berman went on to produce more than 40 films, often two or three a year, with Baker also on occasions acting as writer, director and cameraman. They were made on small budgets, rarely more than £20,000, and locations were used instead of more expensive studio sets. To avoid hotel bills the locations were usually near London.

A Tempean speciality was pacy, unpretentious thrillers for which Baker and Berman imported American actors on the wane, including Mark Stevens, Forrest Tucker, Arthur Kennedy and the blacklisted star of The Jolson Story, Larry Parks. Baker and Berman admired the moody style of the American film noir and tried to adopt it in their own work.

Meanwhile, The Guardian’s report can be found here.

As sad as I am to hear about Robert S. Baker’s passing, I like to think that it will reunite him with his former partner, Monty Berman. And maybe in Heaven they can find the financing necessary to bring this character back to life.

Split Infinitives and Spying Initiatives

Most obituaries of William Safire, who died yesterday at age 79 from pancreatic cancer, note that he had long written columns about politics and language for The New York Times, that he once served as a speechwriter for disgraced U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, and that he was an ardent Iraq war propagandist. But The HMSS Weblog observes as well that this “libertarian conservative” took “a turn at being a spy novelist. Safire’s 1995 novel was called Sleeper Spy. In it, a ‘sleeper’ agent planted by the old Soviet Union has been activated.” Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site adds that Safire also penned another crime-oriented novel: Full Disclosure (1977).

A Familiar Face, Gone

“I grew up watching the drifters,” actor Paul Burke remarked to TV Guide in 1962. “My parents owned a few nightclubs in New Orleans. I stayed up late watching the barflies, the brawlers ... I listened to the stories of wasted lives, I watched the effect of wasted lives. It gave me a strong feeling of urgency about my own life. I knew that without a long-range purpose I would be dry, empty, unfulfilled. In 1948, when I was 22, I made a plan for my life. I swore that nothing would prevent me from carrying it out but death.”

At the time, Burke was starring as New York Police detective Adam Flint in the ABC-TV police procedural series Naked City (a role that earned him two Emmy nominations). He was only 35 years old, and the blueprint he’d worked out for his life was deemed “simple--a little list of goals you could print on a postage stamp: to train himself as an actor, to direct plays, and finally, to write.” Burke told TV Guide that he’d achieved that second goal; and while the Internet Movie Database mentions no writing credits for Burke, it does carry a lengthy rundown of his film and television appearances over the last 58 years. He showed up in everything from Hawaiian Eye and the original Thomas Crown Affair to Petrocelli, Ironside, Hawkins, Vega$, Magnum, P.I., Harry O, and Columbo. In addition to playing Flint on Naked City, Burke starred as Joe Gallagher on the World War II drama Twelve O’Clock High (1964-1967).

However, that career came to a permanent end this last Sunday when Burke “died of leukemia and non-Hodgkins lymphoma” at his home in Palm Springs, California. He was 83 years old.

Burke was a fixture on the small screen during my growing-up years. I remember him as someone who brought subtlety, human depth, and strength to his performances, whether he was portraying a cop (which he often seemed to do--he had the right face for it), a crook, a cowboy, or a U.S. congressman (which he played several times on Dynasty). His final role was in the 1990 British movie The Fool.

(Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

READ MORE: “R.I.P., Patrick Swayze and Paul Burke,” by Ivan G. Shreve Jr. (Thrillings Days of Yesteryear).

Hamilton Passes Away

As you may already have heard, Canadian novelist Lyn Hamilton died on September 10 after a battle with cancer. She was 65 years old. After many years of working in the communications field, Hamilton began writing fiction at age 50. She eventually penned 11 books featuring Toronto antiques dealer Lara McClintoch, “who travels the world in search of the rare and beautiful for her shop, finding more than a little murder and mayhem along the way. Each book in the series is set in a different and exotic location and calls upon the past in an unusual way.” Those novels blended Hamilton’s fondness for thriller stories with her interest in archeology. Her most recent McClintoch novel was The Chinese Alchemist (2007).

Janet Rudolph reports at Mystery Fanfare that “There will be no funeral service at [Hamilton’s] request. A celebration with friends will be held later. Condolences may be posted at: etouch.ca. Donations in Lyn’s name to the Canadian Opera Company or the Princess Margaret Hospital.”

Rudolph has also posted a piece that Arthur Ellis Award-nominee Hamilton wrote for Mystery Readers Journal about the background of her McClintoch series. And Mystery*File offers more information about the author and her books.

Our condolences go out to Hamilton’s family and friends.

Celia Later

Mid-June brought the death of Celia Fremlin, who won the Edgar Award for Best Novel for her 1958 book, The Hours Before Dawn. Sad to say, when I first heard that news, Fremlin’s name didn’t ring a bell. So I want to thank Mystery*File for acquainting me with this truly forgotten novel and its creator. More on Fremlin here and here.

Bullet Points: The Slow-Down Edition

With August on the wane, and the prospect of fall in the weather, The Rap Sheet is going to slow things up a bit for the next couple of weeks. That means somewhat fewer posts, and a hiatus for our “Books You Have to Read” series until Friday, September 11. However, we’ll continue to keep track of crime-fiction-related news developments, and bring those to you as soon as possible. Speaking of such bits and pieces ...

• The sales of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels benefited from President John Kennedy taking an interest in them. Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Harlan Coben, and Alex Kava received the seal of approval from First Reader Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Now it seems to be George Pelecanos’ turn. According to The Daily Telegraph, the selection of books President Barack Obama has packed along with him on his family’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard features Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded, David McCullough’s John Adams, Richard Price’s Lush Life, Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, and Pelecanos’ newest paperback novel, The Way Home. If history provides any sort of guide, bookstores should expect to see sales of The Way Home shoot up over the next few weeks.

• We’re adding a new blog listing in the right-hand column. It will connect you to Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes, written by “a couple of P.I.s who also happen to be writers.” Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins are co-owners of a detective agency out in Denver, Colorado, called Highlands Investigations & Legal Services. They also apparently sit on the board for the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. Their still-new blog, they say, is “geared to mystery writers, and contains weekly [posts] on investigative trends, answering writers’ questions about private investigations, and investigative topics of interest.” If you’re setting out to write a private-eye novel, but lack the professional experience of Dashiell Hammett, then Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes just might provide some useful background and tips.

• Another addition to our extensive blogroll: Classic Paperback Reads, in which Steve Kaye (aka Clay Burnham) satisfies his “overwhelming need ... to celebrate the thrilling images of past paperbacks, and to keep them alive.” Also well worth a visit.

• Actress Jorja Fox muses on her return to CSI.

• Here are your Davitt Award winners for 2009.

• We missed mentioning the death on August 14 of Philip Saltzman. An American TV producer and writer, Saltzman worked over the years on The Fugitive, Felony Squad, Perry Mason, The F.B.I., Columbo, A Man Called Sloane, Barnaby Jones, and many other projects, a number of them in collaboration with producer Quinn Martin. Both Stephen Bowie, at The Classic TV Blog, and TV historian Ed Robertson (see here) have posted fond remembrances of the late Mr. Saltzman.

• Also worth reading in The Classic TV Blog is Bowie’s analysis of how Los Angeles has been perceived--and misrepresented--by some familiar crime shows.

• Details of Left Coast Crime 2011, which will take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, have finally been worked out. Pari Noskin Taichert reports in Murderati that the guests of honor will be Margaret Coel and Steven Havill, and that a lifetime achievement award will be given during the festivities to Martin Cruz Smith. More info here.

• Meanwhile, Bouchercon 2010 in San Francisco is still 14 months away (which means it’s high time for me to start planning my attendance), but already there’s been an announcement of who will be headlining the 2011 event in St. Louis. Robert Crais and Charlaine Harris will appear as the American guests of honor, while Colin Cotterill and Val McDermid have been tapped as international guests of honor. The lifetime achievement prize will go to Sara Paretsky.

• A new Agatha Christie short story featuring Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot? Britain’s Daily Mail published “The Capture of Cerebrus” on Sunday. And Sarah Weinman offers some background about this “lost” story and its future here.

• How do James Bond and Matt Helm compare? Find out here.

• Author Marshall Karp (Flipping Out) talks with UK blogger Ben Hunt about being compared with Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen, L.A.’s reputation as “a giant theme park of the bad, the mad and the utterly insane,” and more. Their exchange is here.

• American right-wingers have already gone to crazy town with their lie-filled denouncements of President Obama’s health-care reform initiatives, and they threaten to turn their profoundly negative campaign into even more of a farce. But the idea that the Republican’ts are now “promising to protect seniors’ Medicare from Dems”? That’s just comedy.

• For the benefit of a videographer, Robert Crais and Gregg Hurwitz discuss the inspiration and execution of Hurwitz’s newest novel, Trust No One.

• How many of you remember that Mary Ann Mobley was originally slated to play April Dancer in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., but was replaced by Stefanie Powers?

• Ian Rankin talks with The Guardian about his new protagonist, Malcolm Fox (a “quite different proposition from [Detective Inspector John] Rebus ... he works in one of the police force’s most unpopular departments: the professional standards unit, investigating other cops”), star of the forthcoming novel The Complaints. At the same time, some critics already say “the omens are not good” for Rankin’s post-Rebus fiction. Could we be jumping the gun a bit, guys? How about if we actually read the book and see how readers react before pronouncing this Scottish author’s career moribund?

• Although Rankin accepted induction as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire back in 2002, 72-year-old fellow Scottish novelist William McIlvanney (Laidlaw) has declined the same honor. He told Scotland on Sunday: “It’s something that I tried on in my mind, and I found it didn’t fit. The sleeves were too long, and it just wasn’t part of me. It felt like trying to put a top hat on a man in a boiler suit.”

• Happy birthday, Allan Pinkerton and Sean Connery.

• Damn! The release of Martin Scorcese’s Shutter Island, the film based on Dennis Lehane’s creepy 2003 novel of the same name, has now been set back to February 2010. it was supposed to premiere in October of this year.

• Are you watching the new USA Network Web series Little Monk, which clues fans of Tony Shalhoub’s obsessive-compulsive detective in on Adrian Monk’s back-story? You can catch up with it here.

• Former Seattle city librarian turned book personality Nancy Pearl spotlights nine mysteries that might help you fill out your late summer reading list.

• DC Comics’ Vertigo Crime line has finally arrived.

• And Mark Troy, author of the Honolulu-set Val Lyon P.I. stories, celebrates Hawaii’s 50th anniversary of U.S. statehood this month by reminding us of “two of the best mystery/adventure shows to appear on television”: Hawaiian Eye (1959-1963) and Adventures in Paradise (1959-1962). He has video clips here.

Another Death in the Family

Via Sarah Weinman comes news that New Hampshire author William G. Tapply, creator of the Brady Coyne and Stoney Calhoun series, died last night at age 69. His fans can look forward, though, to more of his work. Tapply’s third Calhoun novel, Dark Tiger, is due out from Minotaur Books in September.

UPDATE: Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site notes that Tapply has yet another novel in the publishing works: The Nomination, a suspense thriller due out next year.

READ MORE: “Author William Tapply Dies,” by Marshall Cutchin (MidCurrent); “William Tapply, 69, Prolific Writer of Mysteries, Non-fiction,” by Bryan Marquard (The Boston Globe).

Good-bye, Karl

After last week, with its multiple celebrity deaths, I was really hoping to take a breather from the obituary beat. But no such luck, apparently. The latest sad news:

Karl Malden, one of Hollywood’s strongest and most versatile supporting actors, who won an Oscar playing his Broadway-originated role as Mitch in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” died today. He was 97.

Malden starred in the 1970s TV series “The Streets of San Francisco” and was the longtime American Express traveler’s-check spokesman, warning travelers to not leave home without it. He died of natural causes at his home in Brentwood, said his daughter Mila Doerner.

According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Malden’s final dramatic performance was in an episode of The West Wing back in 2000. (Video clip here.) But as TV Squad tells it, “His last appearance in general was a few weeks ago. AFI gave a Life Achievement Award to Michael Douglas, and Malden videotaped a congratulations for him. Douglas costarred in The Streets of San Francisco with Malden for several years. The show will air on TV Land July 19.”

Click here for much more from the Los Angeles Times. I’m still looking forward to The New York Times’ tribute to Malden, but meanwhile, its Arts Beat column covers this death in brief.

READ MORE: “The War on Celebrities Continues: Karl Malden Is Dead,” by Jaime J. Weinman (Something Old, Nothing New); “Karl Malden 1912-2009,” by Andrew O’Hehir (Salon); “A Character Actor of Intensified Normalness,” by A.O. Scott (The New York Times); “Karl Malden 1912-2009,” by Ruthe Stein (San Francisco Chronicle).

An Angel Gets Her Wings

This comes as no surprise, given all of the reports about her declining health over the last couple of years, but the news is sad nonetheless: Farrah Fawcett, the blond and bright-smiling, Texas-born model and actress who starred in the 1970s TV hit Charlie’s Angels, died today in Santa Monica, California, at age 62. She succumbed to anal cancer.

I was never a big fan of Aaron Spelling’s Angels series. But I did enjoy watching Fawcett--then credited as Farrah Fawcett-Majors, because of her marriage to The Six Million Dollar Man’s Lee Majors--on the mid-’70s David Janssen TV series Harry O (she played private eye Orwell’s bouncy next-door neighbor, Sue Ingham). And I remember appreciating her in the lead role in a 1989 teleflick called Margaret Bourke-White, about the famous 20th-century U.S. photographer. During the late ’70s and early ’80s, a poster of Fawcett wrapped up in a red bathing suit made her the No. 1 sex symbol in America, rivaled only by The Fall Guy’s Heather Thomas.

Even sadder than word about Fawcett’s passing this morning may be reports that she and her longtime love, actor Ryan O’Neal, who had planned to wed while she remained on her deathbed, weren’t able to follow through on that wish. “There just wasn’t time, and Farrah wasn’t in any condition to do it,” O’Neill is quoted in People magazine as saying.

In fond memory of Fawcett, here’s a video tribute to the actress in her best-remembered role, as Jill Munroe on Charlie’s Angels:



READ MORE: “What Was It About Farrah?” by Mary Elizabeth Williams (Salon); “Hollywood Pays Tribute to Farrah Fawcett,” by Mike Fleeman (People); “Farrah Fawcett Dies at 62; Actress Soared with, then Beyond, Charlie’s Angels,” by Valerie J. Nelson (Los Angeles Times); “Farrah Fawcett, Actress and Iconic Beauty, Dies at 62,” by Susan Stewart (The New York Times); “Good-bye Farrah,” by Sandra Stephens (You Call Yourself a Writer--Me Too); “Former Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett Dies,” by Jesse Baker (NPR); “Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009),” by Edward Copeland (Edward Copeland on Film); “Why We Loved Farrah Fawcett,” by James Ledbetter (Slate); “Farrah Is Dead at 62,” by Marty McKee (Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot); and video tributes to the actress can be found here, here, and here.

Ed’s Dead

I’m very sorry to hear this morning that Ed McMahon, who spent three memorable decades as Johnny Carson’s good-humored sidekick on The Tonight Show, has died in Los Angeles at age 86. Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurewick writes:

With all the change in late-night TV theses days, it is hard to remember what a reliable, inviting and reassuring place McMahon and Carson made their faux couch and desk set seem like from 1962 to 1992--one of the longest and most successful runs in TV history. McMahon played a large role in that popularity with his deep voice, ready laugh and trademark “Heeeeeerrrrrreeee’s Johnny” nightly introduction.

While Carson was a perfectionist who made life difficult for those who worked with him, McMahon said in repeated interviews over the years that his job as sidekick was “the world’s greatest job.’”

“You can’t imagine hooking up with a guy like Carson,” McMahon said a 1993 AP interview. “There’s the old phrase, hook your wagon to a star. I hitched my wagon to a great star.”

Interestingly, McMahon’s demise comes close on the heels of the launch of Hiyoooo.com, billed as “the world’s first virtual sidekick.” When you need a pick-me-up, just go to that site, click on Ed’s smiling noggin, and let his full-throated call herald the significance of your every thought or utterance.

(Hat tip to TV Squad.)

READ MORE: “Heeeeyyyyyooooo!!!” by Ivan G. Shreve Jr. (Thrilling Days of Yesteryear); “Conan O’Brien and Tonight Pay Tribute to Ed McMahon” (The Huffington Post); “Ed McMahon: Sidekick on Tonight for 30 years famous for his cry of ‘Heeeeeere’s Johnny!’” by Michael Carlson (The Independent).

Good-bye, Grasshopper

I was saddened to hear that actor David Carradine, who is probably still best known for portraying a justice-seeking Shaolin monk on the 1972-1975 TV historical drama Kung Fu, was found dead this morning in his hotel suite in Bangkok, where he’d gone to shoot a new film, Stretch. Carradine, part of a prominent acting family, was 72 years old. According to BBC News, he was “found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and other parts of his body.”

The main title sequence from Kung Fu is embedded below. If you are feeling especially nostalgic, YouTube hosts the pilot film for that ABC-TV series in several parts, beginning here.



READ MORE: “R.I.P., David Carradine,” by Marty McKee (Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot); “Carradine Around the Web,” by Marty McKee (Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot); “Thai Police: Carradine Death May Be Accidental,” by Tim Johnston (The Washington Post); “David Carradine, 1936-2009,” by Dennis Cozzalio (Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule); “Good-bye, Grasshopper,” by Kevin Nance (Obit).

Man of Many Faces

Because I was away from my office for most of yesterday afternoon, I didn’t catch up until last night with the sad news that Robert Terrall, a hard-boiled crime writer of the mid-20th century who penned novels under several pseudonyms, died on March 27 at his home in a Connecticut retirement community. He was 94 years old.

From the 1940s through the ’80s, Terrall composed stories under his own moniker as well as pseudonyms. As “Robert Kyle,” for instance, he wrote five books featuring New York private eye Ben Gates, including Blackmail, Inc. (1958) and Kill Now, Pay Later (1960), the latter of which was reissued in late 2007 by Hard Case Crime. The Gumshoe Site’s Jiro Kimura notes that Terrall also “ghost-wrote 24 Michael Shayne novels under the ‘Brett Halliday’ house name starting with Fit to Kill (Torquil/Dodd Mead, 1958) and ending with Win Some, Lose Some (Dell, 1976).”

Blogger Sarah Weinman reports that memorial services for Terrall are scheduled to be held this coming Saturday, April 18, at the Cornwall Congregational Church in Cornwall Village, Connecticut.

If all goes as planned, The Rap Sheet will have more to say about Terrall’s demise within the next couple of weeks.

Farewell to Franchi

Yvonne Klein, a contributor to Reviewing the Evidence (RTE), reports that Barbara Franchi--who was responsible for setting up that book review Web site back in 2001--passed away on Saturday evening. She was 73 years old. In a note sent to the 4-MA mystery group, Klein wrote:

It makes me deeply sad to have to forward the following note from Rudy Franchi.

Barbara passed away Saturday evening. Her daughters, Jill, Susan, Regina, her son-in-law Tony, her grandson Bennett and her husband Rudy were at her bedside. Barbara, a child of the Bronx, started her life as a teacher of geology and then gained prominence in the worlds of mystery fiction via her renowned review website, and movie poster collecting, through her years of organizing auctions and running a major retail/internet operation. Her true joy was traveling across America with Antiques Roadshow and spending time in London. Barbara’s blunt honesty and acerbic wit will be missed. She mentored many young reviewers, dealers and collectors, dispensing street smart advice mixed with self-learned literary perceptions.

Contributions in Barbara’s name can be made to Beit T’Shuvah, 8831 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034, USA.

I used to bump into Franchi at various crime-fiction conferences, as well as during her frequent trips to the UK. One of my fondest memories of the 2006 inaugural ThrillerFest event in Phoenix, Arizona, was the afternoon that author Louise Ure and I spent time with Franchi and the late, great Elaine Flinn. (Franchi, on the left, and Flinn are both shown in the photo above.)

The following is an extract from a piece I put together for Red Herrings, the magazine of the British Crime Writers’ Association, talking about the origin and intentions of Reviewing the Evidence:

I was with Barbara Franchi at ThrillerFest 2006, and she and Sharon Wheeler agreed to tell me a little about their work in the genre with Reviewing the Evidence.

It now boasts more than 5,000 reviews archived on the site, is updated every week with 20 new reviews, and has more than 30 reviewers worldwide in the UK, U.S., Canada and Australia.

“With the demise of the About.com mystery site, I felt a review site for crime fiction was needed, especially one that didn’t have to turn a profit (although it would be nice to break even) and one that was not beholden to any publisher or author,” says Barbara, now RTE publisher.

“With the help of [bookshop co-owner and publicist] Maggie Griffin, who told me how to get books, and the original volunteer reviewers, who were willing to work for free books, I was able to do so.

“The addition of Sharon Wheeler as editor in 2003, gave us a professional editor and has kept us in the top group of web-based review sites. Where a large newspaper, such as the [New York] Times can only review six or eight mysteries a month, we review 20 a week, which gives us lots of room to deal with some of the lesser-known authors.”

And that’s what sets RTE apart from many other publications--a willingness to look beyond the best-seller lists. So you’ll find reviews of books from small publishers such as Arcadia Books or Crème de la Crime sitting happily beside those from the likes of Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House.

The site has built up good relations with publishers on both sides of the Atlantic and also in Australia and Canada. The only no-nos are religious crime fiction of any sort, and self-published work is approached with great caution!

The keyword with reviews on RTE is honesty. Reviewers are given a free rein to express their views about a book constructively. So if they don’t like a book, they say so. Readers of the site know that reviewers will tell it like it is.

“One of my pet hates is bland summaries masquerading as reviews,” says editor Sharon Wheeler, a UK-based journalist. “I think it’s vital that reviewers are honest and constructive about what they read. Raving over every book does no one any favours.”

And regular readers also get to know the likes and dislikes of reviewers and who shares their taste in books. Barbara Franchi has a weakness for macho thrillers. Sharon Wheeler is on a significant Euro crime jag. Bridget Bolton adores cosies. Maddy Van Hertbruggen will read the noirest of noirs. Wayne Gunn is an expert on gay crime fiction.

“The site’s main strength is its reviewers,” says Sharon. “We all do it for the love of the genre, but we are incredibly lucky to have such a group of high-quality writers reviewing for us. Their enthusiasm comes across every week in what they write.”

Barbara Franchi will be missed by the many people (myself included) who have enjoyed her laughter and wisdom over the years.

READ MORE: “Barbara Franchi,” by Janet Rudolph (Mystery Fanfare); “A Tribute to Barbara Franchi,” by Sharon Wheeler (Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room).

Bullet Points: The Carnaval Edition

While the annual Carnaval celebration roars into being in Brazil, complete with its body-painted queen, the rest of us--pasty-white and in no shape to go parading about thoroughfares in our all-togethers--must content ourselves with watching the 81st annual Academy Awards presentation. And maybe ordering in a pizza. And nosing around the blogosphere for crime-fiction news. To wit:

• Bill Crider brings us the sad news that novelist John Alfred “Jack” Webb (no, not the same Jack Webb who brought us Dragnet) has died at age 92. During the 1950s and ’60s, Webb wrote mysteries featuring the crime-solving pair of Father Joseph Shanley and Sammy Golden. The former was a Catholic priest in Southern California, the latter a Jewish detective-sergeant working with what was apparently the Los Angeles Police Department’s Homicide Division. Among Webb’s titles: The Big Sin (1952), The Damned Lovely (1954), The Brass Halo (1957), and One for My Dame (1961).

• Notice of another death in the crime-fiction community comes from Jiro Kimura’s The Gumshoe Site. He reports that Charles “Chuck” Crayne, “one of the founders of Bouchercon and a co-chairman (with Bruce Pelz) of the first Bouchercon, which was held during Memorial Day weekend in 1970 at the Royal Inn in Santa Monica, California,” died on February 16 of cardiac arrest in Willits, California. Crayne was 71 years old.

• Oline H. Cogdill, who for many years has written about crime and mystery fiction for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, today begins penning twice-weekly posts for the Mystery Scene magazine blog. “As I do for the Sun-Sentinel, I’ll be writing about a variety of subjects, mystery fiction, for sure, but also movies, DVDs, publishing trends, etc.,” she told subscribers to the listserv DorothyL. “The plan is to update the Mystery Scene blog each Sunday and Wednesday, though I may add a bonus or two when the mood strikes.” This is good news indeed, since that particular blog has been updated with disappointing infrequency since its inception in the summer of 2007. Even sadder has been the moribund state of the magazine’s companion blog, Brian Skupin’s Bookflings, which hasn’t offered new material since June 17 of last year.

• How can you not read a story that’s headlined “James Patterson: Evil Genius?” Picking up on a news item, blogger and fictionist Declan Burke reports that “Best-selling crime author James Patterson will release a new kind of novel next month--one that’s been collaboratively written with the crowd. Called Airborne, the upcoming novel will feature 30 chapters, each written by a different author except the first and last--those will be written by Patterson himself. With the release of this book, it appears the Web 2.0 movement of collaborative writing is about to hit the mainstream.” Is this good news? It’s hard to know, really ...

• As somebody with a longtime fondness for the works of author Alistair MacLean, once one of the world’s biggest-selling thriller writers, I am delighted to see Gravetapping’s Ben Boulden having collected five trailers for films made from MacLean’s books: The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Breakheart Pass, and Bear Island. Watch these in between Oscar-night shots of Marisa Tomei, Frank Langella, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Brolin.

• Speaking of the Oscars, celebrity Joan Rivers and her co-author, Los Angeles mystery author Jerilyn Farmer (The Flaming Luau of Death), imagine those glitzy goings-on with more crime than camaraderie in Murder at the Academy Awards.

• Devil on Two Sticks. How is that not the perfect book title?

• Linda L. Richards imagines the casting choices for a movie version of her first Kitty Pangborn mystery, Death Was the Other Woman (2008). Although I might prefer How I Met Your Mother’s Alyson Hannigan in the redheaded Kitty role, I can definitely see Russell Crowe as the besotted but still able Los Angeles private eye, Dexter J. Theroux. Now, would somebody just please make this film?

• British blogger-critic Uriah Robinson (aka Norman Price) has been posting a multi-part interview with Hawaii resident Rebecca Cantrell, author of the historical crime novel A Trace of Smoke, which is due out from Forge Books in May. Cantrell answers Robinson’s questions about her book, which is set in Berlin in 1931, here, here, and here, with more of their exchange to come. Fine stuff. UPDATE: The fourth and final installment of Robinson’s discussion with Cantrell can be read here.

• Crimespree editors and Bouchercon organizers Jon and Ruth Jordan win star treatment in the Chicago Tribune.

• The Irish Times investigates the explosion in crime fiction turned out by its homeland’s resident novelists. “There was a time when Irish writers of the criminal persuasion were rarer than root canal work on a hen,” writes Arminta Wallace. “Over the past decade, however, Irish crime fiction has emerged as a self-assured genre whose practitioners are not just selling well at home, but are also gaining recognition on the murderously competitive international crime scene.” The full story can be found here.

• After his splendid post last week about the U.S. TV shows that debuted in the fall of 1971, Saskatchewan writer Brent McKee follows up with another post that addresses questions readers have raised, and even features a bonus double-shot of theme music from Henry Mancini. Personally, I’m looking forward to McKee’s future comments about the 1972-1973 TV season, which he says will include “some rather interesting thoughts on Hec Ramsey.”

• Thinking of Hec Ramsey brings back memories of other NBC Sunday Mystery Movie segments, including Dennis Weaver’s McCloud.

• And though it took longer to write than I had expected, I’m rather pleased with my latest post at the Killer Covers blog. It covers the work of Frank Kane, an alcohol-industry promoter and the creator of New York City private eye Johnny Liddell (Grave Danger, 1954). Check it out when you find a bit of free time.