Elmore Leonard

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Elmore John Leonard Jr. (born October 11, 1925, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a popular American novelist and screenwriter.

His father worked for General Motors (GM), as a site locator for GM facilities, which caused the family to move frequently. Although Leonard was born in New Orleans, he did not live there for long. The family moved often until he was nine, in 1934, when they settled in Detroit, Michigan.

About this time, two major influences occurred that would show up in many of his works. Gangsters such as Bonnie and Clyde were making national headlines, as were the Detroit Tigers baseball team. In the early 1930s, Bonnie and Clyde were on their rampage, and were killed in May, 1934. The Tigers made it to the World Series in 1934. Leonard turned these events into lifelong fascinations with both sports and guns.

Leonard graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in 1943.

Leonard, or "Dutch" as he is sometimes called, got his first break in the fiction market during the 1950s, regularly publishing pulp western novels. He has since forayed into mystery, crime, and more topical genres, as well as screenwriting. He has been commended by critics for his gritty realism and strong dialogue. His writing style sometimes takes liberties with grammar in the interest of speeding along the story. In his essay "Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing", Leonard wrote, "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." [1]

Leonard has been called "the Dickens of Detroit" because of his intimate portraits of people from that city. Leonard's ear for dialogue and ability to render dialogue on the printed page are uncanny and have been praised by writers as diverse as Saul Bellow and Martin Amis. "Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy", Amis told Leonard at a Writers Guild Theatre event in Beverly Hills in 1998. [2]

A number of Leonard's novels have been adapted as films, perhaps most notably Hombre, Get Shorty in 1995, and Rum Punch as the 1997 film Jackie Brown.

Leonard now lives in Oakland County, Michigan, with his family.

Contents

[edit] Novels

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • The Bounty Hunters (1953)
  • The Law at Randado (1954)
  • Escape from Five Shadows (1956)
  • Last Stand at Saber River (1959)(also 1997 TV movie)
  • Hombre (1961) (also 1967 film)
  • The Big Bounce (1969) (also 1969 film and 2004 film)
  • The Moonshine War (1969) (also 1970 film)
  • Valdez is Coming (1970) (also 1971 film)
  • Forty Lashes Less One (1972)
  • Mr. Majestyk (1974) (also 1974 film)
  • Fifty-Two Pickup (1974) (also 1986 film)
  • Swag (1976)
  • Unknown man No. 89 (1977)
  • The Hunted (1977)
  • The Switch (1978)
  • Gunsights (1979)
  • City Primeval (1980)
  • Gold Coast (1980) (also 1997 TV Movie)
  • Split Images (1981) (also 1992 film)
  • Cat Chaser (1982) (also 1989 film)
  • Stick (1983) (also 1985 film)
  • LaBrava (1983) (Edgar Award, Best Novel, 1984)
  • Glitz (1985)
  • Bandits (1987)
  • Touch (1987) (also 1997 film)
  • Freaky Deaky (1988)
  • Killshot (1989)
  • Get Shorty (1990) (also 1995 film)
  • Maximum Bob (1991) (also 1998 TV series)
  • Rum Punch (1992) (also 1997 film Jackie Brown)
  • Pronto (1993)(also a 1997 TV movie)
  • Riding the Rap (1995)
  • Out of Sight (1996) (also 1998 film)
  • Cuba Libre (1998)
  • Be Cool (1999) (also 2005 film)
  • Tonto Woman (1998)
  • Pagan Babies (2000)
  • Fire in the Hole (2001)
  • When the Women Come Out to Dance (2002)
  • Tishomingo Blues (2002)
  • A Coyote's in the House (2003)
  • Mr. Paradise (2004)
  • The Hot Kid (2005)
  • Up in Honey's Room (2007)[3]

[edit] Stories

Stories turned into films:

[edit] Radio

  • Actor Robert Forster recorded a public service announcement for Deejay Ra's 'Hip-Hop Literacy' campaign, encouraging reading of books by Elmore Leonard

[edit] External links

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