George Baxt (June 11, 1923 – June 28, 2003) was an American screenwriter and
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
of
crime fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...
, best remembered for creating the
gay black detective, Pharaoh Love. Four of his novels were finalists for the
Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery
The Lambda Literary Award for Mystery is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, to a mystery novel by or about people in the LGBT community. Prior to 2021, the award was separated into separate categories for Gay ...
.
Life and work
George Leonard Baxt was born in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, to Russian/Jewish immigrants. After working for several years as an agent he moved to Britain in the late 1950s and began a new career as a writer for television and the cinema. His most notable screenplays include ''
The City of the Dead'' (1960) starring
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor and singer. In a long career spanning more than 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultimat ...
and three collaborations with director
Sidney Hayers noted for their taut suspense and black humour: ''
Circus of Horrors'' (1960), the thriller ''
Payroll'' (1961) from the novel by
Derek Bickerton and ''
Night of the Eagle
''Night of the Eagle'' is a 1962 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers. The script by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and George Baxt was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber novel ''Conjure Wife''. The film was retitled ''Burn, Witch, ...
'' (1962) which he re-wrote following a draft by
Charles Beaumont and
Richard Matheson, though his credit was omitted from the US version which was released as ''Burn, Witch, Burn''.
In 1966 he published ''A Queer Kind of Death'', his first novel, which was met with considerable acclaim, not least for his creation of
gay black detective Pharaoh Love. The influential ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' critic
Anthony Boucher said in his review that, "This is a detective story, and unlike any other that you have read. No brief review can attempt to convey its quality. I merely note that it deals with a Manhattan subculture wholly devoid of ethics or morality, that staid readers may well find it 'shocking', that it is beautifully plotted and written with elegance and wit ... and that you must under no circumstances miss it."
A critical analysis of the book can be found in ''
The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered''. Love would be the central figure in two immediate sequels ''Swing Low Sweet Harriet'' (1967) and ''Topsy and Evil'' (1968) and also two later novels, ''A Queer Kind of Love'' (1994) and ''A Queer Kind of Umbrella'' (1995).
Baxt also wrote a long series of period mysteries, combining his love of detective stories and
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
movies by featuring real celebrities solving fictional murder cases in the style of
Stuart M. Kaminsky's 'Toby Peters' books, starting with ''The Dorothy Parker Murder Case'' (1984) and concluding twelve volumes later with ''The Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Murder Case'' in 1998, often featuring detective Jacob Singer. Baxt himself appears as a character in ''The Tallulah Bankhead Murder Case'' (1987), which is set in 1952 during the
HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
hearings.
He died of complication from heart surgery.
Awards
Publications
Pharaoh Love series
*''A Queer Kind of Death'' (1966)
*''Swing Low Sweet Harriet'' (1967)
*''Topsy and Evil'' (1968)
*''A Queer Kind of Love'' (1994)
*''A Queer Kind of Umbrella'' (1995)
Plotkin and Van Larsen series
*''A Parade of Cockeyed Creatures; or, Did Someone Murder Our Wandering Boy?'' (1967)
*''"I!" Said the Demon'' (1969)
*''Satan Is a Woman'' (1987)
Jacob Singer series
*''The Dorothy Parker Murder Case'' (1984)
*''The Alfred Hitchcock Murder Case'' (1986)
*''The Tallulah Bankhead Murder Case'' (1987)
*''The Talking Pictures Murder Case'' (1990)
*''The Greta Garbo Murder Case'' (1992)
*''The Noël Coward Murder Case'' (1992)
*''The Marlene Dietrich Murder Case'' (1993)
*''The Mae West Murder Case'' (1993)
*''The Bette Davis Murder Case'' (1994)
*''The Humphrey Bogart Murder Case'' (1995)
*''The William Powell and Myrna Loy Murder Case'' (1996)
*''The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Murder Case'' (1997)
*''The Clark Gable and Carole Lombard Murder Case'' (1998)
Standalone novels
*''The Affair at Royalties'' (1971)
*''Burning Sappho'' (1972)
*''The Neon Graveyard'' (1979)
*''Process of Elimination'' (1984)
*''Who's Next?'' (1988)
Filmography
Television
*''
Sword of Freedom
''Sword of Freedom'' was a 1958 drama adventure series for a family audience. Like several of its predecessors (most notably ''The Adventures of Robin Hood''), it was produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment and fitted into the same sw ...
''
*
''Ivanhoe'' (1958 TV series)
*''
No Hiding Place''
*
''The Defenders'' (TV series)
*
''Tales of the Unexpected'' (TV series)
Film
*''
Circus of Horrors'' (1960)
*''
The City of the Dead'' (1960) (aka ''Horror Hotel'')
* ''
Payroll'' (1961)
*''
Shadow of the Cat
''The Shadow of the Cat'' is a 1961 British horror film directed by John Gilling for Hammer Film Productions. It stars André Morell and Barbara Shelley. It was photographed in black-and-white by Arthur Grant. It was released in May 1961 on a ...
'' (1961)
*''
Night of the Eagle
''Night of the Eagle'' is a 1962 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers. The script by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and George Baxt was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber novel ''Conjure Wife''. The film was retitled ''Burn, Witch, ...
'' (1962)
*''
Strangler's Web'' (1965)
References
External links
*
Baxt bibliographyprofile of Baxt's life and workat http://www.brookspeters.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baxt, George
1923 births
2003 deaths
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American male writers
American crime fiction writers
American male novelists
Writers from New York City
American gay writers
American LGBT novelists
Novelists from New York (state)
20th-century LGBT people