Noel Ira Behn (Chicago, January 6, 1928 – New York, July 27, 1998) was an American novelist, screenwriter and theatrical producer. His first novel, ''The Kremlin Letter'', drawn from his work in the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps, was published in 1966 and made into a film by John Huston in 1970. Behn's non-fiction ''Big Stick-Up at Brink's'' about a 1950 raid on a Boston armoured car facility, was published in 1977 and adapted into a 1978 movie, ''

The Brink's Job ''The Brink's Job'' is a 1978 American crime comedy drama film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery of 1950 in Bos ...

'', starring Peter Falk and Peter Boyle. His controversial book ''Lindbergh: The Crime'' (1993) delved into the

Lindbergh kidnapping On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Am ...

, claiming that the baby had died in a family accident, and the kidnapping was faked. Behn was influential in the development of Off Broadway theatre in New York and he was producing director of the

Cherry Lane Theater The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The theater is located at 38 Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, ...

throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Among the influential works premiered there under his direction were Sean O’Casey’s ''Purple Dust'' and Samuel Beckett’s ''Endgame''. Beginning in the late 1960s, owing to the happenstance of having offices in the same building on 57th Street in New York City, Behn began longstanding creative friendships with screenwriter

Paddy Chayefsky Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky (January 29, 1923 – August 1, 1981) was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays. He was ...

, choreographer

Bob Fosse Robert Louis Fosse (; June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987) was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals ''The Pajam ...

and playwright

Herb Gardner Herbert George Gardner (December 28, 1934 – September 25, 2003), was an American commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gardner was the son of a bar owner. His late brother, Robert ...

.https://nytimes.com,
Noel Behn, 70, Novelist, Producer and Screenwriter
', 31 July 1998, retrieved 31 December 2008 He also wrote seven episodes of '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' between 1993 and 1997.IMDb
/ref> The second episode of the third season of the prison drama '' Oz'' was dedicated to his memory. Behn became a well-known participant in the social life of Manhattan, often found at the

Russian Tea Room The Russian Tea Room is an Art Deco Russo-Continental restaurant, located at 150 West 57th Street (between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue), between Carnegie Hall Tower and Metropolitan Tower, in the New York City borough of Manhattan ...

(where he always took the first booth for lunch), and at

Elaine's Elaine's was a bar and restaurant in New York City that existed from 1963 to 2011. It was frequented by many celebrities, especially actors and authors. It was established, owned by and named after Elaine Kaufman, who was indelibly associated wi ...

on the Upper East Side in the evening, where he talked and drank with writers such as

Gay Talese Gaetano "Gay" Talese (; born February 7, 1932) is an American writer. As a journalist for ''The New York Times'' and ''Esquire'' magazine during the 1960s, Talese helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with ...

, A. E. Hotchner,

Peter Maas Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

and

Pete Hamill Pete Hamill (born William Peter Hamill; June 24, 1935August 5, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and editor. During his career as a New York City journalist, he was described as "the author of columns that sought to capture th ...

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

was also a regular at Elaine's, and found acting roles for Behn in his films ''

Stardust Memories ''Stardust Memories'' is a 1980 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen, Charlotte Rampling, Jessica Harper and Marie-Christine Barrault. Sharon Stone has a brief role, in her film debut. The film is ab ...

'' (1980) and ''Another Woman'' (1988).

Books

* ''The Kremlin Letter - a novel of espionage'' (1966) * ''The Shadow Boxer'' (1971) * ''Big Stick-Up at Brink's'' (1977) * ''Seven Silent Men'' (1984) * ''Lindbergh the Crime'' (1993)

References

External links

A Guide to the Noel Behn Papers - Online Archive of California
1928 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American male screenwriters American theatre managers and producers Writers from Chicago Screenwriters from Illinois 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters {{US-screen-writer-stub