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 ...

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 ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

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 The Lambda Literary Foundation (also known as Lambda Literary) is an American LGBTQ literary organization whose mission is to nur ...

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, ultim ...

and three collaborations with director

Sidney Hayers Sidney Hayers (24 August 1921 – 8 February 2000) was a British film and television director, writer and producer. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Hayers began his career as a film editor. Among the films he directed are '' Circus of Horrors'' (1 ...

noted for their taut suspense and black humour: ''

Circus of Horrors ''Circus of Horrors'' is a 1960 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers, and starring Anton Diffring, Yvonne Monlaur, Erika Remberg, Kenneth Griffith, Jane Hylton, Conrad Phillips, Yvonne Romain, and Donald Pleasence. Set in 1947, it fo ...

'' (1960), the thriller ''

Payroll A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...

'' (1961) from the novel by

Derek Bickerton Derek Bickerton (March 25, 1926 – March 5, 2018) was an English-born linguist and professor at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. Based on his work in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii, he has proposed that the features of creole languages ...

and '' Night of the Eagle'' (1962) which he re-wrote following a draft by

Charles Beaumont Charles Beaumont (January 2, 1929 – February 21, 1967) was an American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres.Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, "Beaumont, Charles" in David Pringle, ed., '' ...

and

Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science fictio ...

, 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

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 ...

'' critic

Anthony Boucher William Anthony Parker White (August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968), better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher (), was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio d ...

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) * Hollywoo ...

movies by featuring real celebrities solving fictional murder cases in the style of

Stuart M. Kaminsky Stuart M. Kaminsky (September 29, 1934 – October 9, 2009) was an American mystery writer and film professor. He is known for three long-running series of mystery novels featuring the protagonists Toby Peters, a private detective in 1940s Holl ...

'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'' * ''Ivanhoe'' (1958 TV series) *''

No Hiding Place ''No Hiding Place'' is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series ''Murder Bag'' (1957–1958) ...

'' * ''The Defenders'' (TV series) * ''Tales of the Unexpected'' (TV series)

Film

*''

'' (1960) *'' The City of the Dead'' (1960) (aka ''Horror Hotel'') * ''

'' (1961) *'' Shadow of the Cat'' (1961) *'' Night of the Eagle'' (1962) *'' Strangler's Web'' (1965)

References

External links

*
Baxt bibliographyprofile of Baxt's life and work
at 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