Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Writer > M > Horace McCoy

Profile of Horace McCoy on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Horace McCoy  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 14th April 1897
   
Place of Birth: Pegram, Tennessee, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Horace McCoy (April 14, 1897 - December 15, 1955) was an American writer, whose hard-boiled novels took place during the Great Depression. His best-known novel is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935), which was made into a movie in 1969, fourteen years after McCoy's death.

McCoy was born in Pegram, Tennessee. During World War I McCoy served in the United States Army Air Corps. He flew several missions behind enemy lines as a bombardier and reconnaissance photographer. He was wounded and received the Croix de Guerre for heroism by the government of France.

From 1919 to 1930 he worked as a sports editor for the Dallas Journal in Texas. In the late 1920s he began a getting stories published in various pulp mystery magazines.

During the Depression, McCoy moved to Los Angeles in an attempt to became an actor. He worked as an actor in The Hollywood Handicap (1932). A job as a bouncer at a Santa Monica pier that provided the insperation for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, the story of a depression era dance marathon.

McCoy published the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in 1948. The story is narrated by the amoral protagonist, Ralph Cotter. It was made into the a James Cagney movie of the same name.

In Hollywood, McCoy wrote westerns, crime melodramas, and other films for various studios. Although most of his work is unmemorable, McCoy worked with such movie directors as Henry Hathaway, Raoul Walsh, and Nicholas Ray. He was also an uncredited script assistant for King Kong (1933).

McCoy died in Beverly Hills, CA of a heart attack

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Horace McCoy