Jay Bennett (author)
Encyclopedia
Jay Bennett was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award
from the Mystery Writers of America
. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).
in Brooklyn
and then at James Madison High School
in the Flatbush
section of the boro. After graduation, he enrolled in New York University
but dropped out during the Great Depression
. Unable to find a job, he went West, hitchhiking, riding open freights, and sometimes sleeping in small-town jails, which also were open to house the jobless as they wandered in search of employment. Upon his return to New York City, he had a succession of odd jobs before he was able to break into writing. During this time, he also met Sally Stern, a beautician, and they were married in February 1937.
, Bulldog Drummond, The Falcon
, The Kate Smith Show, Manhattan at Midnight, and Mystery Theater. His play, Miracle for Christmas, was broadcast annually on Christmas Eve as part of the Grand Central Station series throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. The play, narrated by Ken Roberts
and featuring Mason Adams
, is part of the Walter Cronkite
anthology, 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century (Radio Spirits).
For the War years of 1942 to 1945, Bennett worked as an English features writer and editor for the United States Office of War Information
.
Following the war, he turned to the theater and had two plays produced. No Hiding Place, a three-act play, was produced by Erwin Piscator
's Dramatic Workshop
of the New School at Broadway's President Theatre (1946). The cast, directed by Maria Ley Piscator
, included Sarah Cunningham
, Anna Berger, and Salem Ludwig
. Lions After Slumber, also a three-act play, was produced at London's Unity Theatre
(1948).
In the early days of television, Bennett authored scripts for Mono-Drama Theatre (DuMont, 1952–1953), Harlem Detective (WOR-TV NYC, 1953), Crime Syndicated (CBS, 1951), Cameo Theatre
(NBC, 1950–1955), High Tension (WOR, 1953), I-Spy (Syndicated, 1956), Wide Wide World
(NBC, 1956), Good Morning (with Will Rogers, Jr.
) (CBS, 1957), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(1957), among other shows. Harlem Detective, for which he was the principal writer, was the first TV show on a national network to co-star a Black actor in a non-stereotyped role alongside a White actor. The Black detective was played first by William Hairston and then by William Marshall.
Also of note from this period was Mono-Drama Theatre, which began as a daytime series on the DuMont Television Network's
New York outlet, WABD-TV, and was later moved to a night-time slot. The series, which won the 1952 Variety Show Management Award, was divided into two parts titled, "One Man's Experience" and "One Woman's Experience." Each part featured a single actor on a spare set, often performing adaptions of classics in mini-series format. Hamlet, which Bennett adapted for this format, was one of the first presentations of the play in the new TV medium in the United States. The live broadcast, starring Jack Manning, took place in daily 15-minute segments over a two-week period, with Manning in contemporary dress and delivering selected portions in modern language. Due to the mini-series format, the modern adaptation, and the day-time audience which, in those days, consisted mostly of housewives, the show was considered by some as Shakespearean soap opera. Others, however, found the adaptation more significant. New York Times TV critic Jack Gould
called it "A highly novel theatrical experiment ..." and "... an immensely interesting show," while the Brooklyn Eagle
described it as a "... daring experiment in presenting classics in modern dress ..." The show was successful enough that the entire two-week mini-series was reprised in the new night-time slot. Subsequent Mono-Drama classical adaptations included The Tell-Tale Heart
, Jane Eyre
, Silas Marner
, and The Taming of the Shrew
. Later in 1953, the show moved to New York's WOR-TV as a half-hour offering, where it took the name High Tension, and continued to present classics adapted by Bennett. Among the more critically acclaimed productions were Robert Louis Stevenson's
Markheim
with Jack Manning and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
with Martin Kosleck
When the locus of TV production moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s, Bennett remained in New York, taking a job as an editor for Grolier
, an encyclopedia publisher. Also at this time, he began writing fictional books. From the 1960s through the 1990s, Bennett authored over 25 novels, initially for adults and then for young adults. His first novel, Catacombs (Abelard-Schuman), was made into a movie, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die (aka Catacombs) (1965), starring Gary Merrill
and Jane Merrow
.
Bennett's young-adult novels were particularly well-regarded because they dealt with such timely topics as teenage suicide (Dark Corridor, Fawcett), drunken driving (Coverup, Franklin Watts), and racial prejudice (Skinhead, Franklin Watts); generally posed significant ethical dilemmas; were fast-paced; and were easy to read. While the titles of his mysteries were invariably dark, his books hinged more on implied violence and threats than on murder itself. The usual Bennett hero was a late-teenage loner drawn by circumstances beyond his control into a treacherous and confusing situation. A recurring theme was the need to reject alienation in favor of reaching out to others. His best work was considered not only quite suspenseful, but written at a maturity level that was appropriate for, and able to connect deeply with, his teen audience.
Translations of Bennett's books can be found in well over a dozen languages.
Catacombs (Abelard-Schuman, 1959);
Murder Money (Crest, 1963);
Death is a Silent Room (Abelard-Schuman, 1965)
Novels for Young Adults
Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Meredith Press, 1968);
The Deadly Gift (Meredith Press, 1969);
Masks: A Love Story (Franklin Watts, 1972);
The Killing Tree (Franklin Watts, 1972);
Shadows Offstage (Nelson, 1974);
The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press, 1973);
The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press, 1974);
Say Hello to the Hit Man (Delacorte Press, 1976);
The Birthday Murderer (Delacorte Press, 1977);
The Pigeon (Methuen, 1980);
The Executioner (Avon, 1982);
Slowly, Slowly, I Raise the Gun (Avon, 1983);
I Never Said I Loved You (Avon, 1984);
The Death Ticket (Avon, 1985);
To Be a Killer (Scholastic, 1985);
The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts, 1986);
The Haunted One (Fawcett, 1989);
Sing Me a Death Song (Franklin Watts, 1990);
Dark Corridor (Fawcett, 1990);
Skinhead (Franklin Watts, 1991);
Coverup (Franklin Watts, 1991);
Death Grip (Fawcett, 1993);
The Hooded Man (Fawcett, 1993)
Short Stories for Young Adults
The Most Dishonest Thing. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1973, pp. 178–180, Grolier, 1973)
I Don't Understand. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1974, pp. 186–189, Grolier, 1974)
A Million Dollar Caper. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1976, pp. 232–237, Grolier, 1976)
The Guiccioli Miniature. (In T. Pines [Ed.], Thirteen: 13 Tales of Horror by 13 Masters of Horror, pp. 73–82, Scholastic, 1991)
My Brother's Keeper. (In M. J. Weiss & H. S. Weiss, [Eds.], From One Experience to Another, pp. 15–30, Forge, 1997)
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).
Early years
Bennett was born to Jewish parents, Pincus Shapiro, an immigrant from Czarist Russia, and Estelle Bennett, a second-generation American who was a native of New York City. His father, a manager of a wholesale dry-goods company, and mother, the company's head bookkeeper, were able to provide a middle-class upbringing. Bennett was educated at the Hebrew Institute of Boro ParkHebrew Institute of Boro Park
Hebrew Institute of Boro Park Hebrew Institute of Boro Park Hebrew Institute of Boro Park (HIBP, also known as "Yeshivas Etz Chaim" was the first Jewish Day School in Boro Park.-History:It was the first yeshiva in Boro Park , located at 5000 13th Avenue ....
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and then at James Madison High School
James Madison High School (New York)
James Madison High School is a public high school located at 3787 Bedford Avenue, in the Madison section of Brooklyn, New York, and educates grades 9 through 12. It is part of Region 6 in the New York City Department of Education...
in the Flatbush
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Flatbush is a community of the Borough of Brooklyn, a part of New York City, consisting of several neighborhoods.The name Flatbush is an Anglicization of the Dutch language Vlacke bos ....
section of the boro. After graduation, he enrolled in New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
but dropped out during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Unable to find a job, he went West, hitchhiking, riding open freights, and sometimes sleeping in small-town jails, which also were open to house the jobless as they wandered in search of employment. Upon his return to New York City, he had a succession of odd jobs before he was able to break into writing. During this time, he also met Sally Stern, a beautician, and they were married in February 1937.
Career
Bennett began his writing career in radio, authoring 27 half-hour scripts prior to the first one being sold. During radio's Golden Age, he wrote scripts for Grand Central StationGrand Central Station (radio)
Grand Central Station was an American anthology radio series which had a long run on the major networks from 1937 to 1954. Produced by Himan Brown, Martin Horrell and others, the story content ranged from romantic comedies to lightweight dramas....
, Bulldog Drummond, The Falcon
The Falcon (radio)
The Falcon radio series premiered on the Blue Network on April 10, 1943, continuing on NBC and Mutual until November 27, 1954. Some 70 episodes were produced....
, The Kate Smith Show, Manhattan at Midnight, and Mystery Theater. His play, Miracle for Christmas, was broadcast annually on Christmas Eve as part of the Grand Central Station series throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. The play, narrated by Ken Roberts
Ken Roberts
Ken Roberts is a Canadian librarian and children's writer who lives in Brantford, Ontario.-Biography:Ken Roberts is the Chief Librarian of the Hamilton Public Library...
and featuring Mason Adams
Mason Adams
Mason Adams was an American character actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York. He earned an MA degree from the University of Michigan in Theatre Arts and Speech and also attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, studying theater arts...
, is part of the Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
anthology, 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century (Radio Spirits).
For the War years of 1942 to 1945, Bennett worked as an English features writer and editor for the United States Office of War Information
United States Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information was a U.S. government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services. It operated from June 1942 until September 1945...
.
Following the war, he turned to the theater and had two plays produced. No Hiding Place, a three-act play, was produced by Erwin Piscator
Erwin Piscator
Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
's Dramatic Workshop
Dramatic Workshop
Dramatic Workshop was the name of a drama and acting school associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City. It was launched in 1940 by German expatriate stage director Erwin Piscator. Among the faculty were Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, among the students Marlon Brando, Tony...
of the New School at Broadway's President Theatre (1946). The cast, directed by Maria Ley Piscator
Maria Ley Piscator
Maria Ley-Piscator is best known as the wife of Erwin Piscator , Germany's famous left-wing theater director. Born on August 1, 1898 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary , Maria Ley sought to create a theatrical career for herself as a dancer in Paris and Berlin...
, included Sarah Cunningham
Sarah Cunningham (actress)
Sarah Cunningham was an American film, stage and television actress.-Personal life:Sarah Cunningham was born Sarah Lucie Cunningham in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. She was married to film and Tony award winning broadway actor John Randolph from January 3, 1942 until her death on...
, Anna Berger, and Salem Ludwig
Salem Ludwig
Salem Ludwig was an American character actor and acting instructor.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ludwig was blacklisted in 1957 and could only find minimal stage work. He had many film and television credits and remained active, even after his 90th birthday, until his death at age 91...
. Lions After Slumber, also a three-act play, was produced at London's Unity Theatre
Unity Theatre, London
The Unity Theatre was a theatre club formed in 1936, and initially based in St Judes Hall, Britannia Street, Kings Cross, in 1937 they moved to a former chapel in Goldington Street, near St Pancras, in the London Borough of Camden. Although the theatre was destroyed by fire in 1975 productions...
(1948).
In the early days of television, Bennett authored scripts for Mono-Drama Theatre (DuMont, 1952–1953), Harlem Detective (WOR-TV NYC, 1953), Crime Syndicated (CBS, 1951), Cameo Theatre
Cameo Theatre
Cameo Theatre was an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1950 to 1955.-Television in the round:...
(NBC, 1950–1955), High Tension (WOR, 1953), I-Spy (Syndicated, 1956), Wide Wide World
Wide Wide World
Wide Wide World was a 90-minute documentary series telecast live on NBC on Sunday afternoons at 4pm Eastern. Conceived by network head Pat Weaver and hosted by Dave Garroway, Wide Wide World was introduced on the Producers' Showcase series on June 27, 1955...
(NBC, 1956), Good Morning (with Will Rogers, Jr.
Will Rogers, Jr.
William Vann Rogers, generally known as Will Rogers, Jr. , was a son of legendary humorist Will Rogers and his wife, the former Betty Blake . He was a Democratic U. S. Representative from California from January 3, 1943 until May 23, 1944, when he resigned to return to the United States Army...
) (CBS, 1957), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
(1957), among other shows. Harlem Detective, for which he was the principal writer, was the first TV show on a national network to co-star a Black actor in a non-stereotyped role alongside a White actor. The Black detective was played first by William Hairston and then by William Marshall.
Also of note from this period was Mono-Drama Theatre, which began as a daytime series on the DuMont Television Network's
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
New York outlet, WABD-TV, and was later moved to a night-time slot. The series, which won the 1952 Variety Show Management Award, was divided into two parts titled, "One Man's Experience" and "One Woman's Experience." Each part featured a single actor on a spare set, often performing adaptions of classics in mini-series format. Hamlet, which Bennett adapted for this format, was one of the first presentations of the play in the new TV medium in the United States. The live broadcast, starring Jack Manning, took place in daily 15-minute segments over a two-week period, with Manning in contemporary dress and delivering selected portions in modern language. Due to the mini-series format, the modern adaptation, and the day-time audience which, in those days, consisted mostly of housewives, the show was considered by some as Shakespearean soap opera. Others, however, found the adaptation more significant. New York Times TV critic Jack Gould
Jack Gould
Jack Gould was an American journalist and critic, who wrote influential commentary about television....
called it "A highly novel theatrical experiment ..." and "... an immensely interesting show," while the Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Eagle
The Brooklyn Daily Bulletin began publishing when the original Eagle folded in 1955. In 1996 it merged with a newly revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and now publishes a morning paper five days a week under the Brooklyn Daily Eagle name...
described it as a "... daring experiment in presenting classics in modern dress ..." The show was successful enough that the entire two-week mini-series was reprised in the new night-time slot. Subsequent Mono-Drama classical adaptations included The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
, Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
, Silas Marner
Silas Marner
Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is a dramatic novel by George Eliot. Her third novel, it was first published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a reclusive weaver, in its strong realism it represents one of Eliot's most sophisticated treatments of her attitude to religion.-Plot summary:The...
, and The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
. Later in 1953, the show moved to New York's WOR-TV as a half-hour offering, where it took the name High Tension, and continued to present classics adapted by Bennett. Among the more critically acclaimed productions were Robert Louis Stevenson's
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
Markheim
Markheim
"Markheim" is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson first published in a magazine in 1884, then republished in 1885 in The Broken Shaft: Tales of Mid-Ocean...
with Jack Manning and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
with Martin Kosleck
Martin Kosleck
Martin Kosleck was a German film actor. Like many other German actors, he fled when the Nazis came to power. Inspired by his deep hatred of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Kosleck would make a career in Hollywood playing villainous Nazis in films. While in the United States, he would appear in more...
When the locus of TV production moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s, Bennett remained in New York, taking a job as an editor for Grolier
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest U.S. publishers of general encyclopedias, including The Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Knowledge , The New Book of Popular Science , Encyclopedia Americana , Academic American Encyclopedia , and numerous incarnations of The Electronic Encyclopedia .Grolier was an...
, an encyclopedia publisher. Also at this time, he began writing fictional books. From the 1960s through the 1990s, Bennett authored over 25 novels, initially for adults and then for young adults. His first novel, Catacombs (Abelard-Schuman), was made into a movie, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die (aka Catacombs) (1965), starring Gary Merrill
Gary Merrill
Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....
and Jane Merrow
Jane Merrow
Jane Merrow is a British actress, born in London to an English mother and German refugee, who was active in the 1960s and 1970s in England and the US. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
.
Bennett's young-adult novels were particularly well-regarded because they dealt with such timely topics as teenage suicide (Dark Corridor, Fawcett), drunken driving (Coverup, Franklin Watts), and racial prejudice (Skinhead, Franklin Watts); generally posed significant ethical dilemmas; were fast-paced; and were easy to read. While the titles of his mysteries were invariably dark, his books hinged more on implied violence and threats than on murder itself. The usual Bennett hero was a late-teenage loner drawn by circumstances beyond his control into a treacherous and confusing situation. A recurring theme was the need to reject alienation in favor of reaching out to others. His best work was considered not only quite suspenseful, but written at a maturity level that was appropriate for, and able to connect deeply with, his teen audience.
Translations of Bennett's books can be found in well over a dozen languages.
Repertoire
Novels for AdultsCatacombs (Abelard-Schuman, 1959);
Murder Money (Crest, 1963);
Death is a Silent Room (Abelard-Schuman, 1965)
Novels for Young Adults
Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Meredith Press, 1968);
The Deadly Gift (Meredith Press, 1969);
Masks: A Love Story (Franklin Watts, 1972);
The Killing Tree (Franklin Watts, 1972);
Shadows Offstage (Nelson, 1974);
The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press, 1973);
The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press, 1974);
Say Hello to the Hit Man (Delacorte Press, 1976);
The Birthday Murderer (Delacorte Press, 1977);
The Pigeon (Methuen, 1980);
The Executioner (Avon, 1982);
Slowly, Slowly, I Raise the Gun (Avon, 1983);
I Never Said I Loved You (Avon, 1984);
The Death Ticket (Avon, 1985);
To Be a Killer (Scholastic, 1985);
The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts, 1986);
The Haunted One (Fawcett, 1989);
Sing Me a Death Song (Franklin Watts, 1990);
Dark Corridor (Fawcett, 1990);
Skinhead (Franklin Watts, 1991);
Coverup (Franklin Watts, 1991);
Death Grip (Fawcett, 1993);
The Hooded Man (Fawcett, 1993)
Short Stories for Young Adults
The Most Dishonest Thing. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1973, pp. 178–180, Grolier, 1973)
I Don't Understand. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1974, pp. 186–189, Grolier, 1974)
A Million Dollar Caper. (In The New Book of Knowledge Annual 1976, pp. 232–237, Grolier, 1976)
The Guiccioli Miniature. (In T. Pines [Ed.], Thirteen: 13 Tales of Horror by 13 Masters of Horror, pp. 73–82, Scholastic, 1991)
My Brother's Keeper. (In M. J. Weiss & H. S. Weiss, [Eds.], From One Experience to Another, pp. 15–30, Forge, 1997)
Additional sources
- Donnelson, K. L., & Nilsen, A. P. (Eds.). (1980). “People Behind the Books: Jay Bennett.” In Literature for Today’s Young Adults. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, and Co., pp. 425.