W. R. Burnett | |
|---|---|
 Burnett in 1935 | |
| Born | William Riley Burnett November 25, 1899 Springfield, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | April 25, 1982 (aged 82) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) |
| Years active | 1931–1972 |
| Spouse(s) |
Marjorie Louise Barstow
(m. 1920)Whitney Forbes Johnston
(m. 1943) |
| Children | James, William |
William Riley Burnett (November 25, 1899 – April 25, 1982) was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies.
Burnett was born in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Miami Military Institute in Germantown, Ohio. He left his civil service job in Springfield to move to Chicago when he was 28, by which time he had written over 100 short stories and five novels, all unpublished.
In Chicago, Burnett found a job as a night clerk in the seedy Northmere Hotel. He found himself associating with prize fighters, hoodlums, hustlers and hobos. They inspired Little Caesar (novel 1929, film 1931). The novel's overnight success landed him a job as a Hollywood screenwriter. Little Caesar became a classic movie, produced by First National Pictures (Warner Brothers) and starring then little known Edward G. Robinson. Burnett returned to the Al Capone theme in 1932 with Scarface. He won the 1930 O. Henry Award for his short story "Dressing-Up", published in Harper's Magazine in November 1929.
Burnett published a novel or more a year and turned most into screenplays (some as many as three times). Thematically[citation needed] Burnett was similar to Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, but contrasting the corruption and corrosion of the city with the better life his characters yearned for. He portrayed characters who, for one reason or another, fell into a life of crime and were unable to climb out. They typically get one last shot at salvation but the oppressive system closes in and denies redemption.
Burnett wrote for many of the great actors and directors, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, and Michael Cimino, John Wayne (The Dark Command), Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood. He received an Oscar nomination for his script for Wake Island (1942) and a Writers Guild nomination for his script for The Great Escape. In addition to his film work he also wrote scripts for television and radio.
In High Sierra (1941), Humphrey Bogart plays Roy Earle, a hard-bitten criminal who rejects his life of crime to help a sexually appealing crippled girl. In The Asphalt Jungle (1949), the most perfectly masterminded plot falls apart as each character reveals a weakness. In The Beast of the City (1932) starring Walter Huston, the police take the law into their own hands when the criminals walk free due to legal incompetence.
In later years, with his vision declining, he stopped writing and turned to promoting his earlier work. On his death in 1982, in Santa Monica, California,[3] Burnett was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Heywood Broun described Burnett's novel Goodbye to the Past as "written with all the excitement of Little Caesar, and ten times the skill".[4]
