Evan Hunter, 78, Prolific Suspense Author, as Ed McBain and Himself

Evan Hunter, who died yesterday at 78, was a prolific author who, under the name Ed McBain, became the master of the police procedural novel.While churning out up to three a year of his “87th Precinct” novels as McBain, Hunter also published children’s books, Westerns, and more serious literary novels under a series of pseudonyms and his own name. His total book sales were said to be somewhere north of 100 million, in dozens of languages. He also wrote screenplays, some based on his novels, including one for “Blackboard Jungle” (1955), a gritty look at the New York City public schools starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier.Hunter, born Salvatore Lombino, was raised in an Italian section of East Harlem, where his father was a postman. When he was 12, the family moved to the Bronx, where he attended Evander Childs High School. He would later attend Hunter College, but steadfastly denied that he changed his name, legally in 1952, to reflect his almae matres.While studying art at the Art Students League and Cooper Union, Hunter played piano in a swing band that appeared at Borscht Belt hotels. In 1944, he enlisted in the Navy. While serving aboard a destroyer in the Pacific, Hunter began composing short stories. By the time he enrolled at Hunter, in 1946, he had decided to become a writer.After graduation, Hunter took a series of jobs while writing in his spare time. He answered telephones for the American Automobile Association, sold Maine lobsters to restaurants, and taught English at two New York City vocational high schools, which provided some of the raw material for “Blackboard Jungle.”Through a classified ad he landed a job at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, which was known for supplying editorial content to pulps. Hunter often told a story about magazine editors who would call in search of a story to match action adventure covers they had already commissioned. Hunter would assure editors that the agency had just such a story on file, then dash home and write it to specification overnight. He later described himself as “fiercely ambitious,” and wrote extensively for everything from Ladies’ Home Journal to Argosy.“Blackboard Jungle” was published in 1954 to excellent reviews. Although the 1955 film garnered four Academy Award nominations, America’s ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, refused to appear at a screening of it at the Venice Film Festival due to its depiction of juvenile delinquents. The film was withdrawn in favor of “Interrupted Melody,” a musical biography of a polio-stricken opera singer also starring Glenn Ford.In 1956, Pocket Books was in search of an author to replace Erle Stanley Gardner, the prodigious engine behind Perry Mason, which sold in the millions. “They would just republish each title every three or four years with new jackets. They kept selling as if they were new books all the time,” Hunter told Contemporary Authors in 2003.” But he was getting old and they were looking for a mystery writer who could replace him, so they asked me if I had any ideas.” He was signed to a multi-book deal that turned into the “87th Precinct” series. “Ed McBain” became the author of at least 72 books, the last of which, “Fiddler,” is due out in the fall.Although he never was a policeman, Hunter said he worked closely with police from the beginning of the series. He told a friend, Otto Penzler, that he approached a beat cop on the street and began quizzing him about police procedure. Eventually, the policeman, who turned out to be a future police commissioner, Richard Condon, would vet each book for authenticity, Mr. Penzler, who writes a column on mystery books for The New York Sun, said.Hunter published under the pseudonyms Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, and Richard Marsten. As Evan Hunter, he wrote several screenplays, including the script for Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (1963).“He kept banker’s hours,” said Mr. Penzler, often a guest at Hunter’s frequent dinner parties at his Connecticut home. “He had a little office at his old home 100 feet from the house, and would go there at 9 a.m. sharp and leave at 12, even if in mid-sentence. After lunch, he’d work until 5.”The titles accumulated. The first three McBains, “Cop Hater,” “The Mugger,” and “The Pusher,” appeared in 1956. They were followed by “The Con Man,” “Killer’s Choice,” and “Killer’s Payoff,” on and on until the stack reached well above his 6-foot height.If Hunter did not quite invent the police procedural – he said he hated the phrase because it made the genre sound boring – he certainly perfected it. He occasionally resented not being credited for what became one of America’s most successful television genres as well, Mr. Penzler said. “Without him, there would be no ‘Hill Street Blues’ or ‘NYPD Blue.’ “Evan HunterBorn Salvatore Lombino on October 15, 1926, in New York; died July 7 at his home in Weston, Conn.; married three times, to his college sweetheart Anita Melnick (divorced), to Mary Vann Finley (divorced), and to Dragica Dimitrijevic, who survives him, as do three sons, Ted, Mark, and Richard, and a stepdaughter, Amanda Eve Finley.

Evan Hunter, 78, Prolific Suspense Author, as Ed McBain and Himself

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