Evan Hunter: The Plagiarist From Rigel IV - Short Science Fiction Audiobook

https://lostscifi.com - Science Fiction Grand Masters a 17 hour audiobook from the greatest vintage sci-fi writers for only $7.97. Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Clifford D. Simak, Fritz Leiber, Lester Del Rey, Frederik Pohl, Harlan Ellison, Harry Harrison, Damon Knight, Jack Vance, Poul Anderson and Robert Silverberg.

This author lived a pretty extraordinary life. He was hired by legendary Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock to write a screenplay for what would become one of Hitchcock’s greatest movies. It was one of several screenplays written by our featured author. Actors who starred in projects he wrote and developed for the big screen and Television include Richard Chamberlain, F. Murray Abraham, Ben Johnson, Jerry Orbach, Robby Benson, Raquel Welch, Burt Reynolds, Yul Brynner, Tom Skerritt , Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, and Suzanne Pleshette. Wow! If You’re a movie buff you may have already guessed that the Hitchcock classic he wrote the screenplay for was, The Birds.

Before Hitchcock and Hollywood our author served on a destroyer in the Pacific in the Navy during World War II.

He wrote more than 139 novels over 53 years! That’s an average of a little more than 2 and a half novels a year for more than half a century.

Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952, but before he did, he sold a short science fiction story to If, Worlds of Science Fiction Magazine. In the magazine, which had made its debut two months earlier in March 1952, he is credited with writing “Welcome, Martians!” As S.A. Lombino which as fas I can tell was one of only a handful of times he used his real name. So why the name change? Well, as the story goes an editor once told him his Italian heritage might stop him from achieving great success, so SA Lombino became Evan Hunter.

Oh, and if you think you recognize the name Evan Hunter, you’re probably right. Lombino took a number of jobs in the early 1950’s to pay the bills while attempting to get his writing career off the ground. One of them led to a novel, which became a movie, starring Glenn Ford, Sidney Pointier, Vic Morrow and Anne Francis. He spent 17 days as a teacher at the Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950. That experience led to his 6th novel titled The Blackboard Jungle which became the movie of the same name starring the previously mentioned star studded cast.

Lombino had several pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Richard Marsten and then there’s the name he used most often, Ed McBain! As McBain he wrote the “87th Precinct” crime series. Once again his novels made their way to Television. In 1961 and 62 NBC aired a police drama called “87th Precinct”. He started writing for television in 1956 with a teleplay for “The Kaiser Aluminum Hour” which aired on NBC in 1956 and 57 and he wrote the story for two episodes of “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” a syndicated TV show, two years later in 1958 and 59.

Evan Hunter was actually hired by Alfred Hitchcock twice and fired once. Fresh off the success of The Birds Hunter was hired to write the screenplay for Hitchcocks followup film Marnie. Hunter had challenges writing the rape scene and so he was fired, not by Hitchcock directly but by his assistant Peggy Robertson.

Hunter, a heavy smoker for decades developed a series of health challenges and died in 2005 at the age of 78 in Weston, Connecticut about 50 miles from where he was born in New York City.

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Next week on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast an author who knew what he wanted to be when he was only 10 and he was serious. This native New Yorker kept story ideas in a notebook before he was a teenager.