Richard S. Prather
Richard S. Prather was an American author born on September 9, 1921, in Santa Ana, California, known for creating the lighthearted private detective Shell Scott. His writing career began while he was still a child, and he served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II before transitioning to a civil service role after the war. In 1949, influenced by pulp mystery writers like Raymond Chandler, Prather introduced Shell Scott in his debut novel, *Case of the Vanishing Beauty*, which marked the start of a successful series featuring over forty works that combined humor with mystery.
Prather's Shell Scott character, characterized by his cleverness and charm, became exceptionally popular during the 1950s and 1960s, ranking as the second most popular private detective in fiction at the time. Prather's novels were known for their playful plots and engaging dialogue, contrasting sharply with the hardboiled style of contemporaries like Mickey Spillane. Throughout his career, he also contributed to various magazines and produced short stories, further establishing his presence in the mystery genre.
In addition to his writing, Prather was involved in the Mystery Writers of America, receiving accolades for his contributions, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. He lived in various locations throughout his life, including a stint in Mexico City, and later settled in Sedona, Arizona, where he continued to develop his work, remaining active in the literary community until his later years.
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Richard S. Prather
Writer
- Born: September 9, 1921
- Birthplace: Santa Ana, California
- Died: February 14, 2007
- Place of death: Sedona, Arizona
Biography
Richard Scott Prather was born on September 9, 1921, in Santa Ana, California. He began dabbling at writing poetry and short stories as a child. He attended Riverside Junior College in 1940 and 1941 before enlisting in the U.S. Merchant Marine after the outbreak of World War II, where he served as a fireman, oiler, and engineer from 1942 to 1945. After the war, Prather worked for four years as a civil service clerk at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. In 1945, he married Tina Hager, an artist.
In 1949, Prather, a pulp mystery fan influenced by writers Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon, began writing a novel built around the exploits of a lighthearted, wisecracking, womanizing private investigator with white eyebrows. Named Shell Scott, the new detective lived in the Spartan Apartments in Hollywood and worked out of the Hamilton Building in Los Angeles. Shell Scott and his canary-yellow (later robin’s-egg blue) Cadillac first appeared in Case of the Vanishing Beauty in 1950.
The initial novel launched a string of more than forty entries, including novels and collections of stories and novellas, in a series featuring outlandish plots, buxom babes, sexually charged dialogue, and an eternally thirty-year-old Shell Scott. The tongue-in-cheek mysteries released over the next four decades, with titles such as Darling It’s Death (1952), The Wailing Frail (1956), Dig That Crazy Grave (1961), and the latest to date, Shellshock (1987), provided a humorous, easygoing contrast with the work of the era’s best-selling author, Mickey Spillane, and his hardboiled Communist-fighting hero Mike Hammer. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, Prather’s creation was the second most popular private detective in fiction. More than forty million Shell Scott books were published in the United States, and countless additional millions have been printed in a variety of languages.
In the early 1950’s, Prather (who likes to move every few years) and his wife lived for a time in Mexico City, Mexico, where the author, fueled with coffee and cigarettes, produced three titles, often working for twenty-four consecutive hours or more. He also began producing shorter fictional works, usually featuring Shell Scott, for such periodicals as Thrilling Detective, Manhunt, Cavalier, and Escapade. Prather’s detective also spawned Shell Scott’s Mystery Magazine, where Prather’s short stories naturally appeared. Prather also edited an anthology, wrote several nonseries mystery novels using the pseudonyms Douglas Ring or David Knight, and collaborated on a mystery featuring both Shell Scott and Chester Drum, the creation of fellow writer Stephen Marlowe (Double in Trouble, 1959).
From 1974 to 1980, Richard and Tina Prather grew organic avocados in Falbrook, California, during a protracted lawsuit that Prather brought against Simon and Shuster and their subsidiary Pocket Books, to settle a long-term contract dispute. Prather, twice a member of the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America, received the 1986 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Private Eye Writers of America. In 2005, he and his wife were living in Sedona, Arizona, where Prather was working on the long-awaited forty-first entry in the Shell Scott series, to be called The Death Gods.