Author. He gained international recognition as an American novelist and screenwriter. He is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction of the 20th century. The character in his novels, "Philip Marlowe," is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective." Born the only child of a railroad engineer and a mother, who was an Ango-Irish immigrant, he spent his early years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. After his alcoholic father abandoned the family, his mother moved the family to London, England in 1900 to live with her mother. He would follow in his father's footsteps battling alcoholism. He was educated at Dulwich College in London and spent some of his childhood summers in Waterford, Ireland with his mother's family. He traveled to Paris, France and Munich, Germany to study foreign language. In 1907 he became a naturalized British subject to qualify for the civil service examination. After passing the exam, he held an Admiralty post, which lasted for a year. He then became a reporter for the "Daily Express" and the "Bristol Western Gazette" newspapers. As an unsuccessful journalist, he published reviews and wrote romantic poetry. In 1912 he borrowed money from his Waterford uncle to return to the United States. He visited with his aunt and uncle in Nebraska before traveling to California, settling in San Francisco and taking a correspondence bookkeeping course. His mother joined him later that year, and in 1913 they moved to Los Angeles. Performing odd jobs along the way in order to earn money, he eventually found steady employment with the Los Angeles Creamery. During World War I, he enlisted, as a British citizen, in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, saw combat in the trenches in France with the Gordon Highlanders, and was undergoing flight training in the Royal Air Force when the war ended in November of 1918. In 1922 he began working as a bookkeeper and auditor for the Dabney Oil Syndicate, and by 1931 he was a highly paid vice president. However, his alcoholism, absenteeism, promiscuity with female employees, and threatened suicides all contributed to his dismissal a year later. In 1932 he turned to his latent writing talent to earn a living, teaching himself to write pulp fiction by studying the "Perry Mason" story formula of author Erle Stanley Gardner. At the age of 44, his first professional work, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," was published in "Black Mask" magazine in 1933, and his first novel, "The Big Sleep," was published in 1939, featuring his famous Philip Marlowe detective character speaking in the first person. His second Marlowe novel, "Farewell, My Lovely," in 1940, became the basis for three movie versions adapted by other screenwriters, including 1944's "Murder My Sweet," which received the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture. Literary success and film adaptations led to a demand for him to become a screenwriter. He and Billy Wilder co-wrote the Academy Award nominated for Best Screenplay, "Double Indemnity" in 1944, which was an adaption of James M. Cain's novel of the same name. In 1946 he produced his only original screenplay, "The Blue Dahlia," which was nominated for Best Original Screen Play by the Academy Awards. The same year he moved to La Jolla where he wrote three Philip Marlowe novels: "The Little Sister" in 1949, "The Long Goodbye" in 1953 and "Playback" in 1958. In 1951 he collaborated on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train," an ironic fantasy murder story based on Patricia Highsmith's novel of the same title. After a respite in England, he returned to La Jolla and regained his United States citizenship. His final Marlowe short story was entitled "The Pencil," which would provide the basis for the HBO 1983 to 1985 mini-series entitled "Philip Marlowe, Private Detective." In 1958, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. The 2012 Japanese television 5-episode mini-series, "The Long Goodbye," was based on his novel by the same name. The 2022 film "Marlow" was based on his character. He died of pneumonia and uremia at the age of 70. All of his novels except for "Playback" have been adapted to film at least once. His "Farewell, My Lovely," "The Little Sister," and "The Long Goodbye" are often considered his masterpieces. Upon returning from World War I, he met "Cissy" Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior with an adult son, and after her divorce and his mother's death, the couple married in 1924. In 2011, his wife's ashes were interred with his, and a new marker was erected with a quote from his novel "The Big Sleep." He had no children.