Brian Francis Wynne Garfield (January 26, 1939 – December 29, 2018) was an
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
-winning American novelist, historian and screenwriter. A
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
finalist, he wrote his first published book at the age of eighteen. Garfield went on to author more than seventy books across a variety of genres, selling more than twenty million copies worldwide. Nineteen were made into films or TV shows. He is best known for ''
Death Wish'' (1972), which launched a
lucrative franchise when it was adapted into the 1974
film of the same title.
Early life
Garfield was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, the son of George Garfield and Frances O'Brien, a portrait artist and friend of
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...
. O'Keefe had introduced the pair. He was the nephew of chorus dancer and stage manager
Chester O'Brien
Chester Lee "Chet" O'Brien (June 28, 1909 – July 14, 1996) was an American chorus dancer in the 1930s who became a stage manager. He worked on ''Oh! Calcutta!'' and on ''Sesame Street'', where he also performed as "Mr. Macintosh".
Biography
As ...
, and a distant relation of Mark Twain.
Career
In the 1950s, Garfield toured with The Palisades, who released a single on the
Calico label. He attended the
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory.
T ...
and served in the U.S. Army and the Army Reserves from 1957-65.
His first novel, ''Range Justice'', written when he was eighteen, was published in 1960. By the end of the following decade, he had published sixty novels. Once he turned fifty, Garfield continued to publish, but at a less prolific rate.
In 1972, he published ''
Death Wish'' which was adapted into the
film of the same title. Four movie
sequels
A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...
followed, all starring
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his "granite features and brawny physique," he gained international fame for his starring roles in action, Western, and war ...
in the lead role.
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series ''Moonlighting'' (1985–1989) and appeared in over a hundred films, gaining recognition as an action hero a ...
starred in a
2018 remake. Garfield was directly involved only in the original movie. He wrote a sequel, ''
Death Sentence
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
'' (1975), which was very loosely adapted into the 2007
film of the same name. While the film had a different storyline, it adopted the novel's critical perspective on vigilantism. ''
Hopscotch
Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a ch ...
'', also published in 1975, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Garfield wrote the screenplay for the
1980 film adaptation starring
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau (; born Walter John Matthow; October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor, comedian and film director.
He is best known for his film roles in '' A Face in the Crowd'' (1957), ''King Creole'' (1958) and as a coach of a ...
,
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson (born 9 May 1936) is an English actress and former Member of Parliament (MP). She has won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice: for her role as Gudrun Brangwen in the romantic drama ''Women in Love'' (1970); and again for ...
and
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television and, film. He has received a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award, and has receive ...
.
In 1970, Garfield was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
for ''The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians''. His last book, published in 2007, was a critical biography of the controversial British intelligence officer
Richard Meinertzhagen
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer, and ornithologist. He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating and ...
.
He and his wife Bina divided their time between their homes in
Pasadena, California
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
I ...
and
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
. They were supporters of
Wildlife WayStation
The Wildlife WayStation was a in Sylmar, California in northern Los Angeles County dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating wild and exotic animals. A charitable corporation located within the boundaries of Angeles National Forest, the facility ...
, an animal sanctuary in Southern California.
Death
Garfield died at home in Pasadena in December 2018 at the age of 79. His wife said the cause was complications of Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
John Grisham
John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Am ...
credited Garfield’s article “Ten Rules for Suspense Fiction” with “giving him the tools” to write his thrillers. When he died,
Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block (born June 24, 1938) is an American crime writer best known for two long-running New York-set series about the recovering alcoholic P.I. Matthew Scudder and the gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. Block was named a Grand Mas ...
tweeted, “RIP Brian Garfield. Fine writer, friend for years”. In 2015, The
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe, her life, American modernism, and public engagement. It opened on July 17, 1997, eleven years after the artist's death. It comprises multiple sites in two loca ...
Research Center in Sana Fe announced that Brian Garfield and his wife had given a gift of correspondence between O’Keeffe and Garfield's mother, Frances O’Brien, "that provides insight into the women’s shared work ethic, their era and their sense of humor — and shows O’Keeffe’s penchant for dashes in her informal notes. The gift includes letters, postcards, interviews and other materials from the 1940s to the 1970s that were collected by O’Brien".
Pen names
*Bennett Garland
*Alex Hawk
*John Ives
*Drew Mallory
*Frank O'Brian
*
Jonas Ward
*Brian Wynne
*Frank Wynne
Works
Novels
Short stories
Collections:
* ''Checkpoint Charlie'' (1981), collection of 12 short stories
* ''Suspended Sentences'' (1992), collection of 8 short stories
Non-fiction
* ''The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians'' (1969)
* ''Western Films: A Complete Guide'' (1982)
* ''The Meinertzhagen Mystery: The Life and Legend of a Colossal Fraud'' (2008)
Screenplays
* ''
The Last Hard Men'' (1976) - Garfield did uncredited rewrites. Based on his novel ''Gun Down'' (1971).
* ''
Hopscotch
Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a ch ...
'' (1980) - Based on his novel.
* ''
The Stepfather'' (1987) - Screenplay by Donald E. Westlake, based on a story by Garfield, Westlake, and Carolyn Lefcourt.
See also
*
List of Ace Western Double Titles
References
External links
*
Brian Garfield author page at Piccadilly PublishingBrian Garfield's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garfield, Brian
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
1939 births
2018 deaths
American male novelists
American male screenwriters
American mystery writers
Edgar Award winners
Western (genre) writers