Kendell Foster Crossen (July 25, 1910 – November 29, 1981) was an American pulp fiction and science fiction writer. He was the creator and writer of stories about the Green Lama (a pulp and comic book hero) and the Milo March detective and spy novels.
18-399: Crossen Kendell Foster Crossen , detective story author Crossens , a district of Southport See also [ edit ] Krossen Krosno Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Crossen . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
36-735: A 1958 film ), The Splintered Man (1955), A Lonely Walk, based on the Wilma Montesi case (1956), The Gallows Garden (1958), A Hearse of Another Color (1958), So Dead the Rose (1959), Jade for a Lady (1962), Softly in the Night (1963), Six Who Ran (1964), Uneasy Lies the Dead (1964), Wanted: Dead Men (1965), The Day It Rained Diamonds (1966), A Man in the Middle (1967), Wild Midnight Falls (1968), The Flaming Man (1969), Green Grow
54-525: A military dog, were omitted from the Paperback Library series: The Big Dive and The Gentle Assassin , the latter as by Clay Richards. In 2020–2021, Steeger Books (formerly Altus Press ) reprinted the whole Milo March series, including Born to Be Hanged , now in paperback for the first time; the previously unpublished work, Death to the Brides ; and six Milo March short stories collected under
72-579: The Green Lama , a crime-fighting Buddhist superhero whose powers emerged upon the recitation of the Tibetan mantra " om mani padme hum . He wrote hundreds of radio scripts for The Green Lama , Suspense , The Saint , Mystery Theater , and others. His later television credits include 77 Sunset Strip , The Man from Blackhawk , Man and the Challenge , and Perry Mason . Crossen was one of
90-432: The 1930s he was employed as a writer on Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects, including a New York City Guidebook , before becoming editor of Detective Fiction Weekly in 1936. In the 1940s he wrote pulp detective fiction and novels under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Richard Foster, M.E. Chaber, Christopher Monig, Clay Richards, Bennett Barley, and others. He originated the pulp and comic book character
108-596: The Graves (1970), The Bonded Dead (1971), and Born to Be Hanged (1973). In some of these plots, March is called to duty in the U.S. Army Reserve. Notable among these is The Splintered Man , in which he rescues the West German head of counterespionage police kidnapped by the East Germans (a character loosely based on Otto John ), who are forcing him to take LSD as a mind-control experiment. In 1967, also under
126-496: The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. A successful series of tightly plotted novels about a brandy-drinking, poetry-quoting New York insurance investigator named Milo March was published under the name M.E. Chaber from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s: Hangman’s Harvest (1952), No Grave for March (1953), As Old as Cain (1954), The Man Inside (1954; made into
144-449: The box office disappointment of Fire Down Below [1957]. The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Virtually a carbon copy of the same director's Interpol [1957], this peripatetic thriller shares the previous film's faults, as well as its advantages. The picture's most notable feature is Nigel Patrick's edged performance." The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This old-fashioned yarn has Nigel Patrick on
162-596: The founders of the Mystery Writers of America and the uncredited editor of its first anthology, Murder Cavalcade (1946). In the 1950s Crossen began writing science fiction for publications such as Thrilling Wonder Stories , including the humorous Manning Draco stories about an intergalactic insurance investigator (four of which are collected in Once Upon a Star: A Novel of the Future , 1953). His novels in
180-529: The genre are Year of Consent (1954), dealing with an America run by tyrannical "social engineers", and The Rest Must Die (1959), about survivors of a nuclear catastrophe in New York City. Novellas include Passport to Pax (1952) and Things of Distinction (1952). He edited two sci-fi anthologies, Adventures in Tomorrow (1951) and Future Tense (1952). Crossen's papers and works are collected at
198-682: The ghost of the town of Crossen on the Oder), and M.E. Chaber (from the Hebrew word mechaber , meaning author). Some bylines use the abbreviated name Ken Crossen . Kendell Foster Crossen was born in Albany, Ohio (outside Athens ), the only child of farmers Sam Crossen and Clo Foster Crossen. He attended Rio Grande College in Ohio on a football scholarship. He was an amateur boxer and worked at jobs ranging from carnival barker to insurance investigator. In
SECTION 10
#1732783451048216-527: The lam with a priceless diamond and Hollywood hunk Jack Palance as the private eye in hot pursuit. This dashes from one eye-catching European capital to the next, picking up the statuesque Anita Ekberg en route. With Anthony Newley as a Spanish cabbie, Donald Pleasence as an organ grinder and Sid James as a wideboy, the cast alone makes this worth watching, even if the plot is as old as the hills." British film critic Leslie Halliwell said: "Fairly modest and unenterprising British thriller which hadn't much hope of
234-462: The largest diamond, which is worth $ 700,000, on a train travelling to London. March describes the diamond as "$ 700,000 of unhappiness" because people are willing to do anything to get it. Alan Ladd was originally announced to play the lead, and later it was announced that Victor Mature would play it. In October 1957 filming for the project was pushed back from November 1957 to April 1958 in order to allow for Warwick's challenged cash flow following
252-539: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crossen&oldid=1196493759 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Kendell Foster Crossen His pen names included Richard Foster , Bennett Barlay , Kent Richards and Clay Richards , Christopher Monig (the name of
270-530: The name M.E. Chaber, Crossen published The Acid Nightmare , a cautionary young adult novel about LSD. A final Milo March manuscript, set in Vietnam, was completed in 1975 but was unpublished during the author's lifetime owing to a difference of opinion with his publisher, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, who told him it was "too political and too controversial." Paperback Library reissued 20 Milo March novels from 1970 to 1971 ( Born to Be Hanged didn't make it into
288-492: The same name by M. E. Chaber . It was Bonar Colleano 's final film role. Sam Carter is a jeweller's clerk who dreams of stealing a fortune in diamonds and eventually does so, but he kills a man in the process. He then embarks on the high life, but is pursued across Europe by private detective Milo March, a woman named Trudi Hall, and two thugs, Martin Lomer and Gerard Heinz. These characters end up trying to outwit each other over
306-535: The series). The same series included four novels featuring insurance investigator Brian Brett: Abra-Cadaver , The Burned Man , Once Upon a Crime , and The Lonely Graves , all as by Christopher Monig. The final book in the series is The Tortured Path , written as by Kendell Foster Crossen, featuring Major Kim Locke of the CIA, on assignment in Communist China. Two other Kim Locke novels, in which Locke works with
324-412: The title The Twisted Trap . The Man Inside (1958 film) The Man Inside is a 1958 British crime adventure film directed by John Gilling and starring Jack Palance , Anita Ekberg , Nigel Patrick , Anthony Newley and Bonar Colleano . It was produced by Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli for Warwick Film Productions . The screenplay by David Shaw was based on the 1954 novel of
#47952