St. Clair McKelway

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St. Clair McKelway (February 13, 1905 - January 10, 1980) was a writer and editor for The New Yorker magazine beginning in 1933. He was brought up in Washington D.C., and began his journalistic career as an office boy at the Washington Herald. While working at the New York Herald Tribune, he was described by Stanley Walker as, "One of the twelve best reporters in New York." He served as a managing editor for journalistic contributions at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1939, after which he was a staff writer^[1]. During World War II, he held public relations posts for the Army Air Force, leaving the service with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

In 1950, a selection of his New Yorker pieces was collected in the book True Tales from the Annals of Crime & Rascality. One article from that collection was the basis for the 1950 movie Mister 880, starring Edmund Gwenn as a small-time counterfeiter of one dollar bills, who eluded the United States Secret Service for ten years, from 1938 to 1948^[2]. St. Clair McKelway also wrote screenplays for two other movies in 1948, and published the book The Edinburgh Caper: A One-Man International Plot in 1962.