Stuart Palmer

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Stuart Palmer (June 21, 1905 -February 4, 1968) was a popular mystery novel author and screenwriter, best known for his character, Hildegarde Withers.

Palmer was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin. His first novel, "The Penguin Pool Mystery" was published in 1931 and filmed the following year as The Penguin Pool Murder starring Edna May Oliver as Palmer's heroine, Hildegarde Winters, a spinster schoolteacher who was an amateur sleuth, something of an American version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple although considerably more comic and caustic. Oliver's casting was a happy coincidence as Palmer had been influenced by her performance in the Broadway production of Showboat when creating the character. The film was a hit and Oliver starred in two further Winters films but in 1935 left the film studio, RKO Radio, and the series floundered with Helen Broderick and later ZaSu Pitts in the role for another three films.

In the 1930's several of his stories were made into motion pictures. In 1936, he penned his first screenplay and would go on to write several others, most of them b movies.

Palmer was also instrumental in writing for several other film series, scripting the first three Bulldog Drummond films by Paramount, and later entries in the Lone Wolf and The Falcon films.

Palmer wrote several Hildegarde Winters mystery novels, including "Murder on the Blackboard" (1932), "Murder on Wheels" (1932), "The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree" (1934), "The Riddles of Hildegarde Winters" (1947), "Four Lost Aces" (1949), "Cold Poison" (1954), "The People Vs. Withers and Malone" (1963), and "Hildegarde Winters Makes the Scene" (1969) which was published posthumously and cowritten by Flora Fletcher.

Palmer also wrote a few detective novels with the lead character of Howie Rook and served one year as present of the Mystery Writers of America.