biography
| name: |
Hammett, (Samuel) Dashiell
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1894–1961)
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| biography:
| Writer, born in St Mary's Co, Maryland, USA. After serving in the army in World War 1, he went to San Francisco, where he became a Pinkerton detective and advertising copywriter. After the success of his first novels he became a Hollywood scriptwriter, and also published some short stories in The Black Mask. Most of his work came out in a five-year period, starting with Red Dust (1929) and ending with The Thin Man (1934). He effectively invented hard-boiled detective fiction with his lean prose style and cynical detective, Sam Spade, and his work was praised by many serious writers and critics. Long identified with left-wing politics, in 1951 he spent six months in jail for refusing to testify about the Civil Rights Congress, of which he was a trustee. In 1953, after refusing to answer questions from Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee, he was blacklisted by Hollywood. He lived the last 30 years of his life with the writer Lillian Hellman. |
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