Today is the 130th birthday of the writer Raymond Chandler. If you are a fan of film noir and/or crime dramas set in Los Angeles in the first half of the last century, he is the guy for you. The world is a better place because he is in it and still feels the loss that he has left.
NAME: Raymond Chandler
OCCUPATION: Entrepreneur, Author, Screenwriter
BIRTH DATE: July 23, 1888
DEATH DATE: March 26, 1959
EDUCATION: Dulwich School
PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, Illinois
PLACE OF DEATH: La Jolla, California
Best Known For: Raymond Chandler was an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and author known for seminal detective novels like The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye.
Today the birthday of Raymond Chandler, born in Chicago (1888). His parents were Irish, and after his father left the family, his mother moved them back to Ireland, and he grew up there and in England. Later, he moved back to America and settled in California.
He wrote pulp fiction about the city of Los Angeles and a detective there named Philip Marlowe. Chandler’s first novel was The Big Sleep (1939), which sold well and was made into a movie in 1946 with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall — William Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay. Chandler wrote seven more novels featuring Philip Marlowe, who became the quintessential “hard-boiled” private eye, tough and street-smart and full of wise cracks. In Farewell, My Lovely (1940), Marlowe says: “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”
Chandler was never any good at coming up with plots. He had to study and steal from other mystery writers like Dashiell Hammett. But he knew how to create atmosphere. One of his early stories, “Red Wind” (1938), begins: “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that . meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.”
Chandler is famous for his metaphors. In one novel he wrote, “She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looked by moonlight.” In another he wrote, “She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”
Author of books:
The Big Sleep (1939, novel, Marlowe)
Farewell, My Lovely (1940, novel, Marlowe)
The High Window (1942, novel, Marlowe)
The Lady in the Lake (1943, novel, Marlowe)
The Long Goodbye (1954, novel, Marlowe)
Playback (1958, novel, Marlowe)
Source: Raymond Chandler – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: Raymond Chandler – Author, Screenwriter – Biography.com
Source: Raymond Chandler
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