Gordon D. Shirreffs was a U.S. 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:...

, known mostly for writing Western and juvenile (young adult) novels. He also wrote a teleplay

Teleplay

A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...

. Two of his novels, Judas Gun and Rio Bravo, were made into movies (I Live for Your Death (1968) and Oregon Passage (1957), respectively). One of his short stories ("Silent Beckoning") became the movie The Lonesome Trail (1955). His novel "Last Train From Gunhill" was made into a film starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn and released in 1959. Strangely, however, Les Crutchfield, who wrote a great deal for Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke

Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

, is cited as the author for the story and Shirreffs' name is not given although all of the character names and plot follows those in the novel.

Biography

Gordon Shirreffs was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 in 1914, soon after his mother emigrated from Scotland. Shirreffs was a U.S. Army veteran of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 where he was stationed in Alaska's Aleutian Islands as part of the Pacific Theater.

Shirreffs married Alice Johanna Gutwein on February 7, 1941 in El Paso, TX. They had two children, a daughter Carole (born 1943) and a son Brian (born 1946.)

He lived in Granada Hills, San Fernando Valley, CA from 1952 until his death in 1996.

Novels

• Rio Bravo (1956)
• Ambush on the Mesa (1957)
• Fort Vengeance (1957)
• Son of the Thunder People (1957)
• Massacre Creek (1958)
• Shadow Valley (1958)
• Last Train from Gunhill (1958)
• Roanoke Raiders (1959)
• The Lonely Gun (1960)
• The Rebel Trumpet (1960)
• They Met Danger (1960)
• The Mosquito Fleet (1961)
• The Proud Gun (1961)
• The Gray Sea Raiders (1961)
• Powder Boy of the Monitor (1961)
• The Border Guidon (1962)
• Action Front! (1962)
• Voice of the Gun (1962)
• Tumbleweed Trigger (1962)
• The Haunted Treasure of the Espectros (1962)
• The Cold Seas Beyond (1963)
• Slaughter at Broken Bow (1963)
• Quicktrigger (1963)
• Mystery of Lost Canyon (1963)
• The Hostile Beaches (1964)
• The Secret of the Spanish Desert (1964)
• The Enemy Seas (1965)
• Barranca (1966)
• The Bolo Battalion (1966)
• Torpedoes Away! (1967)
• The Mystery of the Lost Cliff Dwelling (1968)
• The Killer Sea (1968)
• Blood Justice (1969)
• Jack of Spades (1970)
• Mystery of the Haunted Mine (1970)
• The Lone Rifle (1972)
• Too Tough to Die (1973)
• Showdown in Sonora (1974)
• Manhunter (1974)
• The Godless Breed (1974)
• Last Train from Gun Hill(1975)
• The Brave Rifles (1977)
• Legend of the Damned (1977)
• Top Gun (1977)
• Now He Is Legend (1979)
• Calgaich the Swordsman (1980)
• The Untamed Breed (1981)
• South West Drifter (1981)
• Bold Legend (1982)
• Arizona Justice (1983)
• Glorieta Pass (1984)
• Range Rebel (1985)
• The Ghost Dancers (1986)
• Bugles on the Prairie (1986)
• Bowman's Kid (1987)
• Five Graves to Boot Hill (1987)
• Hell's Forty Acres (1987)
• Rio Diablo (1987)
• Brasada (1987)
• Trail's End (1987)
• The Apache Hunter (1988)
• The Code of the Gun (1988)
• Renegade's Trail (1988)
• Ride a Lone Trail (1988)
• Hangin' Pards (1988)
• Last Man Alive (1988)
• Rio Desperado (1988)
• Renegade Lawman (1988)
• Fort Suicide (1989)
• Shadow of a Gunman (1989)
• Gunslingers Three (1989)
• The Nevada Gun (1989)
• Apache Butte (1989)
• The Hidden Rider of Dark Mountain (1989)
• The Walking Sands (1990)
• The Devil's Dance Floor (1994)
• Gunswift (1996)

Omnibus

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

• Three from the West (1963)
• Blood Justice / Valiant Bugles (1985)
• Last Train from Gun Hill / Border Guidon (1992)
• Rio Diablo / Top Gun (1993)
• Shadow Valley / Fort Vengeance (1993)
• Showdown in Sonora / Manhunter (1995)
• Bowman's Kid / Renegade's Trail (1995)
• Apache Hunter / Marauders (1995)

External links

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0794396/