Brian Garfield

Brian Garfield

Brian Garfield and his wife Bina divide their time between homes in Los Angeles and Santa Fe. He is happy to answer questions from readers -- e-mail briagar@aol.com .

The writer was born in 1939. His first published book was written when he was 18. He grew up in Arizona, earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Arizona, and has lived in various parts of Europe and America. He has published about seventy books, several of them nominated for (or winners of) awards, and numerous short pieces. He is best known for his novels of suspense and the movies derived from them, including "Hopscotch", "Death Wish", "Relentless", "Necessity" and "Death Sentence."

More than 20 million copies of his books have been published worldwide. He is an Army veteran and a past-President of the Western Writers of America and of the Mystery Writers of America (the only writer to have served in both offices).

Eighteen films are based on his writings, and two more are on the way -- ("Death Wish", an MGM remake with Sylvester Stallone, and "The Stepfather", a Sony remake) to be released in 2009.

The Hyde Park / Baldwin Entertainment Group production “Death Sentence”, with Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, John Goodman and Aisha Tyler, based on Garfield’s novel and directed by James Wan, was released by 20th Century Fox in September 2007. It is available now on DVD.

In the 1950s Brian Garfield toured as an itinerant musician with “The Palisades”, a jazz-rock-blues band that had a top-40 hit with “I Can’t Quit” (Calico Records) - they appeared on “American Bandstand” and other programs. Thus, having performed as jazz, blues and rock-&-roll artist, and having written and/or produced Westerns, mysteries, hard-boiled crime novels, spy stories, and a musical comedy movie (“Legs”, about the Rockettes, co-produced by Radio City Music Hall), he claims to have worked in nearly all the original Anglo-American popular arts. But his publishers’ frequent complaint is that he and his work cannot be type-cast. (He explains, "If the writer ever gets bored, Heaven help the reader.")

He is completing a new thriller for 2009 publication. His latest book is THE MEINERTZHAGEN MYSTERY (Potomac Books, 2007; paperback February 2008), yet another departure -- a nonfiction biography of a British hero of science and warfare and espionage whose exploits, Brian has discovered and here proves, were largely hoaxes, even though he fooled many high-ranking friends like Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence and Ian Fleming.

A film about the young Theodore Roosevelt's real adventures as a rancher in Dakota Territory, based on Garfield’s historical novel MANIFEST DESTINY, is in pre-production under the dual banners of Robert Rehme and the Baldwin Entertainment Group. The screenplay is by Emmy Award winner (for "John Adams") Kirk Ellis.

Brian Garfield's seminal novel "Death Wish" defined a crime-writers’ genre and became the basis for a series of Charles Bronson action-movies. Brian won the Edgar Award for "Hopscotch" (best novel; and basis for the awards-nominated movie "Hopscotch" with Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson and Sam Waterston, directed by Ronald Neame; the film was written and co-produced by Garfield) and has been nominated for several other prizes.

Others among his more than sixty books and films are "Wild Times" (finalist for the American Book Award; basis for the television mini-series with Sam Elliott, Ben Johnson and Dennis Hopper), "Recoil", "Relentless" (filmed in 1977 with the late Will Sampson), "Kolchak’s Gold," "Necessity" (filmed in 1983), "Line of Succession," "Fear in a Handful of Dust" (filmed as "Fleshburn"), "The Last Hard Men" (filmed in 1976 with James Coburn, Charlton Heston and Barbara Hershey), and the cult-favorite movie original "The Stepfather" (1987, with a stunning performance by Terry O'Quinn).

Among his nonfiction books are "Western Films: A Complete Guide," the recent "The Meinertzhagen Mystery", and the classic nonfiction history book "The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians," the first full-scale history of the only World War II campaign fought on North American soil; the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, and for several years has been the bestselling title of the University of Alaska Press.

For online writers' interviews with Brian Garfield, go to Internet Links http://noveljourney.blogspot.com/2007/01/author-interview-brian-garfield.html
and
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/55623/historian-interview-with-brian-garfield/

And to ask the writer a question, write to him at briagar@aol.com .