Mark Sadler writes of the rough side of our smooth world, of the criminal hidden under the "normal" surface. The son of a revolutionary politician turned actor, he has lived in New York, Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco, Upstate New York, Chicago, Canada, London, Paris, and other cities too numerous to mention. Educated, with a B.A. and an M.A., through four colleges, he has been an actor, stage hand, farm worker, business editor, chemist, teacher, junior executive―and for twenty years a writer about the people and forces that shape our time. He has fought as an infantry soldier, lived in five countries, worked in stockroom and executive suite, observed at firsthand what makes men act for good or evil. Now he writes of the despair and violence behind all the eager faces. He is already at work on a series of stories, and his next novel.
Certainly sounds like an action-packed life, no? What the bio leaves out is that Mark Sadler never existed, or at least he wasn't named Mark Sadler. Rather he was Dennis Lynds, who had already gotten some acclaim writing the Dan Fortune series under his main pseudonym of Michael Collins. Some of what's written about him is true. He did fight in the infantry in World War II. He did have two different degrees in two subjects, although I would have thought the one in chemistry would be a Bachelor of Science. And both his parents were actors, although I find nothing in either Wikipedia or the Santa Barbara library about his dad also being a revolutionary politician.
Whether it was Lynds himself who wrote the above or someone with a staff job at Random House, it appears to be an amalgam of fact and fancy. And why not? If you use a pseudonym you have the option of going all out.
2 comments:
His 'bio' as Mark Sadler reminds me of a time, sadly gone now, when you could tell an employer or anyone else about your background and they'd likely as not believe you. This included educational attainments and other accomplishments, besides upbringing and life experiences. The most famous of them was a con artist named Frank Abagnale who appeared of the Johnny Carson Show in 1978:
https://youtu.be/FIYtKR24LQs?si=Nm0eYbG-ASyFNM3-
While Sadler's 'bio' is far more outrageous, even as Lynds himself did accomplish remarkable things - two degrees, a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in ww2, never mind the writing awards. Abagnale pulled off a number of real deceptions that entertained Johnny no end. Hope you don't mind the digression.
Discounting the aliases Lynds himself was a very prolific writer - considering he published 80 novels and 200 short stories over a writing career that began in 1964 and continued until shortly before his death in 2005. He even won some prestigious awards and set new directions in mystery fiction. And I never heard of him. Of course, I was in the habit of reading English mystery fiction when I read mysteries at all. It's likely he would be better known now had he not used all the aliases, but it appears he decided to conceal just how prolific a writer he was by writing under different names - imagine penning 80 novels and 200 short stories in less than 40 years. It boggles the mind.
The 'bio' does sound like the work of a pencil pusher at the publishers office.
It was probably inevitable that prospective employers would tighten up their vetting procedures, both because of advances in communication technology and the boss's general unwillingness to leave anything to chance. Somehow we've now become accustomed to the idea of people we don't know and will never meet knowing everything about us. I know Frank Abagnale was the subject of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, likely fictionalized. It's an Italian name, so it should be pronounced AH-ban-yah-lay. Either Johnny wasn't familiar with it or Abagnale changed the pronunciation himself. I do like when Johnny said he could be an NBC executive.
Oh yeah, Lynds led a pretty eventful life. The Bronze Star and Purple Heart are easy to take for granted because most of that generation got sent to war but they're definitely something. Abagnale was the kind of tricky character that I hope still exists in the world.
Yeah, Lynds seems to have always had a few irons in the fire. The Shadow paperbacks that he wrote in the 1960s seem to have been a success, although of course he had to use the house name of "Maxwell Grant" on those. When you write and publish that much it probably is a good idea to have an extra name or two. It would keep the reading public from feeling like they were being overexposed to you. Really is kind of amazing though.
Whoever wrote the bio does seem to have had a good time with it. Good for them.
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