Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard
Leonard at the 70th Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon, 2011
Born	Elmore John Leonard Jr. (1925-10-11)October 11, 1925 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	August 20, 2013(2013-08-20) (aged 87) Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Writer
Alma mater	University of Detroit
Genre	Pulp fiction Westerns Crime fiction
Spouse	Beverly Claire Cline ​ ​ (m. 1949; div. 1977)​ Joan Shepard ​ ​ (m. 1979; died 1993)​ Christine Kent ​ ​ (m. 1993; div. 2012)​
Children	5, including Peter
Relatives	Megan Freels Johnston (granddaughter)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1943–1946
Rank	Petty officer third class
Unit	Seabees
Battles/wars	World War II

Elmore John Leonard Jr. (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were Westerns, but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures. Among his best-known works are Hombre, Swag, City Primeval, LaBrava, Glitz, Freaky Deaky, Get Shorty, Rum Punch, Out of Sight and Tishomingo Blues.

Leonard's short story "Three-Ten to Yuma" was adapted as 3:10 to Yuma, which was remade in 2007. Rum Punch was adapted as the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown (1997). His writings were also the basis for The Tall T, as well as the FX television series Justified and Justified: City Primeval. Among other honors, he won the 2009 Pen Lifetime Award^[1] and the 2012 Medal For Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.^[2][3]

Anthony Lane wrote that Leonard

was hailed as one of the best crime writers in the land. High praise, but not quite high enough, and some way off the mark. He was one of the best writers, and he happened to write about crime. Even that is not entirely accurate. It's true that his novels (more than forty of them, with another left unfinished at his death) enjoyed the company of criminals and of those who tried to stop them in their tracks. This was seldom hard, since, as Leonard delighted in showing us, crime—more than anything, even politics—allows men of all ages to disport themselves across the full range of human ineptitude. Boy, do they screw up.^[4]