Ernest Haycox
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of Western fiction
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
.
Biography
Haycox was born in PortlandPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, to William James Haycox and the former Martha Burghardt on October 1, 1899. After receiving an education in the local schools of both Washington state and Oregon, he enlisted in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
in 1915 and was stationed along the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
border in 1916. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he was in Europe, and after the war he spent one year at Reed College
Reed College
Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
in Portland. In 1923, Haycox graduated from the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in journalism, where he also started writing under professor W. F. G. Thatcher. In 1925, Haycox married Jill M. Chord, and they would have two children.
He published two dozen novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and about 300 short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, many of which appeared first in pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s in the early 1920s. During the 1930s and 40s, he was a regular contributor to Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
from 1931 and The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
from 1943. Fans of his work included Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, and the latter once wrote, "I read The Saturday Evening Post whenever it has a serial by Ernest Haycox."http://www.ochcom.org/haycox
His story "Stage to Lordsburg" (1937) was made into the movie Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
and featuring John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
in the role that made him a star. The novel Trouble Shooter (1936), originally serialized in Collier's, was the basis for the movie Union Pacific
Union Pacific (film)
Union Pacific is a 1939 American dramatic western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Based on the novel Trouble Shooter by Western fiction author Ernest Haycox, the film is about the building of the railroad across the American West.-Plot:The 1862...
(1939), directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
, starring Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
and Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
. Haycox wrote the screenplay for Montana (1950), directed by Ray Enright
Ray Enright
Ray Enright was an American film director. He directed 73 films between 1927 and 1953.He was born in Anderson, Indiana and died in Hollywood, California from a heart attack.-Selected filmography:...
, which stars Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:...
and Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
.
Haycox died in 1950, at the age of 51, in Portland. In 2005 the Western Writers of America
Western Writers of America
Western Writers of America, founded 1953, promotes literature, both fiction and non-fiction, pertaining to the American West. Although its founders wrote traditional western fiction, the more than five hundred current members also include historians and other non-fiction writers as well as authors...
voted Haycox one of the 24 best Western authors of the Twentieth Century.
Burnt Creek Stories
While living in New York Haycox wrote his first series of interconnected stories set in Burnt Creek, a town in central Oregon.Stories Set During the American Revolution
From 1924 through 1926 Haycox lived in New York city, and he became deeply interested in the American Revolution. Haycox made several trips to battlefields in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts and wrote eight stories and two noveletts set during that era. After publishing one of these stories, Haycox received a letter from a reader stating that Haycox did not describe the uniforms of the soldiers correctly. Haycox promptly purchased a book on the Revolutionary era military uniforms. After his move back to Oregon in 1926, Haycox concentrated on Westerns, and he precisely researched the military uniforms of eras he wrote about.New Hope Stories
Appearing in Collier's between 1933 and 1938, these stories are set in New Hope, a trading town on the Missouri River in the 1880's. Many of these stories are told in the first person, a device Haycox used about a dozen times during his writing career.Serial and Historical Novels
Beginning in the mid 1930’s Haycox began to write novels and a few stories which are based on historical events. The first of these was Trouble Shooter (1936), followed by The Border Trumpet (1939), Alder Gulch (1942) and Bugles in the Afternoon (1943). At the same time as these novels were written, Haycox continued to write novels and short stories which had an ambiance and milieu of the west but which were not based on specific events or places. Somewhere in between these two kinds of novels is Trail Town, which is based on Abilene Kansas, and Sheriff Tom Smith, but which is nonetheless a work of fiction, where Abilene becomes River Bend and Tom Smith become Dan Mitchell. Haycox did write a story set Abilene with Sheriff Tom Smith as a character called On Texas Street. Haycox’s historical novels are the ones which Professors Etulain and Tanner write most about in their essays and books about Haycox, but Luke Short preferred Haycox’s non-historical novels: “My favorite Haycox yarns don’t lean on a known time or place…. In these stories, I suspect Haycox made his own geography, named his own towns and mountains and rivers; he peopled them with tough abrasive characters whose only law was their self will.”Unpublished Novel and Story
Haycox wrote National Beauty in 1939 about a woman in Oregon who wins beauty contestBeauty contest
A beauty pageant or beauty contest, is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria...
s, and goes to Hollywood, but is not success in the movie industry. Collier's declined this novel, and the manuscript apparently was destroyed, as it was not included in the preserved Ernest Haycox Papers. Collier's also rejected the story "Boyhood."
Two Novels Concurrently Serialized
Haycox was one of the most successful writers in the slick magazine market of the 1940's. In 1943 Collier's and The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
serialized two different Haycox novels at the same time. Collier's serialized The Wild Bunch beginning on August 28, 1943, and continued on September 4, 1943, September 11, 1943, September 18, 1943,
September 25, 1943 and concluded on October 2, 1943. The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
serialized Bugles in the Afternoon beginning on August 21, 1943 and continued August 28, 1943, September 4, 1943, September 11, 1943, September 18, 1943, September 25, 1943, October 2, 1943, and concluded on October 9, 1943.
The Mercy Family Stories
At the end of 1948 through the beginning of 1949 Haycox published three stories, one in Collier's and two in The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
featuring the Mercy family. These stories are Haycox's "tribute to the pioneer mother."
Quotations
"No sensible man watches his feet hit ground. He looks ahead to see what kind of ground they'll hit next." - Pioneer Loves. Call This Land HomeSelected works
Note: Many of Haycox's novels and stories have been published under more than one title. The list below shows the titles used for the original publications.Filmography
- Union PacificUnion Pacific (film)Union Pacific is a 1939 American dramatic western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Based on the novel Trouble Shooter by Western fiction author Ernest Haycox, the film is about the building of the railroad across the American West.-Plot:The 1862...
(1939), based on Trouble Shooter (1936) - Stagecoach (1939), based on "Stage to Lordsburg" (1937)
- Sundown Jim (1942), based on Sundown Jim (1937)
- Abilene Town (1946), based on Trail Town (1941)
- Canyon Passage (1946), based on Canyon Passage (1945)
- Man in the Saddle (1951), based on Man in the Saddle (1938)
- Bugles in the Afternoon (1952), based on Bugles in the Afternoon (1943)
- The Far CountryThe Far CountryThe Far Country is a 1954 American western movie directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their fourth western collaboration...
(1954), based on Alder Gulch (1941)
External links
- Under Western Skies: Ernest Haycox and the West in Fiction and Film an exhibit at the University of OregonUniversity of Oregon-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
Libraries - Best Westerns of the 20th Century as selected by the Western Writers of AmericaWestern Writers of AmericaWestern Writers of America, founded 1953, promotes literature, both fiction and non-fiction, pertaining to the American West. Although its founders wrote traditional western fiction, the more than five hundred current members also include historians and other non-fiction writers as well as authors...
- Guide to the Ernest Haycox Papers, 1922-1974, housed at the University of Oregon Libraries, from the Northwest Digital ArchivesNorthwest Digital ArchivesNorthwest Digital Archives is an online catalog of descriptive information about the archival collections at various institutions in the Northwestern United States...
- Radio program Escape's 137th episode "Wild Jack Rhett" written by Ernest Haycox. Original air date: Dec 17, 1950 Download or Listen