Jonathan Latimer Miscellaneous Scripts and Screenplays, 1940-1960 (MSS 133)

Jonathan Wyatt Latimer, journalist, screen writer and detective story author was born October 23, 1906 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Mesa Ranch School in Arizona from 1922-1925 and later studied at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1929. In the same year he began his career as a writer at the Chicago Herald Examiner and later wrote for the Chicago Tribune. Working as a police reporter and "rewrite man," Latimer covered stories in the gangster world through the early 1930s, and met notorious crime figures including Al Capone.

After writing an article about Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, Latimer was hired as a ghost writer for the Department of the Interior. During the time Latimer worked as a ghost writer for Ickes, he began the first of his series of mystery novels. His first novel, Murder in a Madhouse, became a 1935 best-seller and introduced Bill Crane, the hard-drinking detective and hero of five of Latimer's novels.

After serving in the U.S. Navy between 1942 and 1945, Latimer became a successful Hollywood screenwriter, producing scripts for such movies as "Lady in the Morgue," "Topper Returns," and the "Glass Key," as well as ten films directed by John Farrow. Latimer later wrote television scripts for forty-five episodes of the "Perry Mason" show, 1960-1965. Latimer also wrote ten episodes for the "Markham" series and about twenty television specials.

Jonathan Latimer retired to La Jolla, California in 1973, where he died on June 23, 1983.