Noel Behn was an American novelist, screenwriter and theatrical producer. His first novel, The Kremlin Letter, drawn from his work in the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps, was made into a film

The Kremlin Letter

The Kremlin Letter is an American noir film directed by John Huston, starring Richard Boone, Orson Welles, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Patrick O'Neal and George Sanders. It was released in February 1970 by 20th Century-Fox...

 by John Huston

John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

 in 1970. Behn's non-fiction The Big Stick-Up at Brink's was adapted into a 1978 movie starring Peter Falk

Peter Falk

Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...

 and Peter Boyle

Peter Boyle

Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....

. His controversial book Lindbergh: The Crime delved into the Lindbergh kidnapping

Lindbergh kidnapping

The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was the abduction of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The toddler, 18 months old at the time, was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of...

, claiming that the baby had died in a family accident, and the kidnapping was faked. Behn was influential in the development of Off Broadway theatre in New York and he was producing director of the Cherry Lane Theater throughout the 1950s and 60s. Beginning in the late 1960s, owing to the happenstance of having offices in the same building on 57th Street in New York City, Behn began longstanding creative friendships with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky

Paddy Chayefsky

Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....

, choreographer Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse

Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...

 and playwright Herb Gardner.
He also wrote seven episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...

between 1993 and 1997.

The second episode of the third season of the prison drama Oz

Oz (TV series)

Oz is an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes . It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by premium cable network HBO. Oz premiered on July 12, 1997 and ran for six seasons...

was dedicated to his memory.