Joe Hyams (June 6, 1923 – November 8, 2008) was an American Hollywood columnist and author of bestselling biographies of Hollywood stars.
Hyams was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 6, 1923, and grew up in nearby Brookline, Massachusetts. While attending Harvard University, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1942. He received a Purple Heart and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal while serving in the South Pacific. He later covered the war for Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the United States Armed Forces. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees at New York University, after returning from military service.[1]
In 1951, the New York Herald Tribune sent him to do an article on illegal immigration to the United States. He was flown to Mexico on a small airplane and came back into the United States with a group crossing the border illegally. Once the story was complete, his editor told him that a room was waiting for him at The Beverly Hills Hotel. "Take a break, and if you get a chance to interview any movie stars, go for it." Asked by a man seated at the hotel's pool what he was doing at the hotel, he replied that he was supposed to interview movie stars. "How would you like to interview Humphrey Bogart?" was the reply from what turned out to be Bogart's press agent. In addition to the interview with Humphrey Bogart, within the week Hyams had interviewed Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy. The Herald Tribune had him relocated to Los Angeles. He covered Hollywood as a syndicated columnist from 1951 to 1964.[1]
After leaving the Herald Tribune, Hyams covered Hollywood for the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook and other publications.[1]
He was the author (or co-author) of more than two-dozen books, most of which were biographies of the celebrities he covered, including Bogie in 1966, Bogart & Bacall: A Love Story in 1975 and James Dean: Little Boy Lost in 1992. He co-authored celebrity autobiographies, with Chuck Norris on The Secret of Inner Strength: My Story and worked on Michael Reagan: On the Outside Looking In, with the adopted son of the former President. His own autobiography, Mislaid in Hollywood, was written in 1973. He also wrote novels set in Hollywood, such as The Pool and Murder at the Academy Awards.[1]
His 1979 book Zen in the Martial Arts was built on his 50 years studying martial arts with such figures as Bong Soo Han, Bruce Lee, and Ed Parker. With penologist Tom Murton, he wrote Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal, a 1969 nonfiction account that was the basis for the 1980 film Brubaker starring Robert Redford. In 1991 he wrote the non-fiction work Flight of the Avenger: George Bush at War.[1]
His second marriage was to 24-year-old actress Elke Sommer in November 1964 in a civil ceremony in Las Vegas.[2]
Hyams had been a longtime resident of Los Angeles and moved to Penrose, Colorado, three years before his death. He died at age 85 on November 8, 2008, from coronary artery disease at a hospital in Denver, leaving his fourth wife, two sons, and two daughters.[1]